


Once a Witcher

by ghostinthelibrary



Series: Where There's a Witcher [6]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Gun Violence, Human Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Kaer Morhen, M/M, Minor Triss Merigold/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, The Eternal Fire, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:55:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostinthelibrary/pseuds/ghostinthelibrary
Summary: One year after Geralt was turned into a human, Geralt and Jaskier learn that the Eternal Fire has a hit out on both of them and have no choice but to retreat to Kaer Morhen to hide, accompanied by a long-lost friend of Lambert's. But once at Kaer Morhen, the Eternal Fire becomes the least of their worries.
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Where There's a Witcher [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604140
Comments: 132
Kudos: 283





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> And we're back! Apologies for the long wait between fics in this series, but life is crazy, I have too many projects, the world is on fire, etc.
> 
> Thank you to dls for betaing!

There’s a witcher sitting at Jaskier’s kitchen table.

All in all, this isn’t an unusual occurrence. Up until a year ago, his boyfriend was a witcher. And even now that Geralt has been turned into a human, they get frequent visits from Eskel and Coën, and less frequent— but always eventful— visits from Lambert.

No, what’s unusual is that Jaskier doesn’t know this witcher. He’s tall and lean with short dark brown hair, golden brown skin, a neatly trimmed beard, and piercing yellow eyes. The medallion around his neck is that of a snarling cat instead of a wolf.

And most notably, he’s holding a knife. As Jaskier watches, the witcher flips the knife into the air and catches it deftly, his eyes never leaving Jaskier. Jaskier isn’t sure if it’s a nervous habit or a threat. If it’s a threat, it’s an effective one.

Slowly, Jaskier puts his bags of groceries down on the counter and tries to assess his surroundings, like Geralt taught him. The knife block is on the other side of the kitchen. He would have to go around the island to get to it and the witcher would be on him in a second. There’s a cast iron skillet in the dish drainer that he might be able to reach from where he’s standing, but the witcher would have plenty of time to get to him before he grabbed it. He has some canned goods in his grocery bags that would make good projectiles, though he doubts they would do anything more than piss the witcher off.

If this witcher is here to hurt him, he’s fucked, but that’s pretty normal for Jaskier.

“You must be Jaskier,” the witcher says mildly as he flips the knife in the air again. He has a pleasant voice.

“You have the wrong house,” Jaskier tells him.

The witcher grins. It was a weak attempt at deception— witchers can hear heartbeats, after all— but Jaskier was hoping that how rapidly his heart is pounding would disguise the lie. “No, I think this is the place I’ve been looking for. Your name is Julian Alfred Pankratz, called Jaskier for some reason I couldn’t figure out, and you live with Geralt of Rivia, the former witcher.”

“If you were looking for a brotherly reunion, you could have called. We’re making chicken and pesto for dinner tonight.”

“He’s a Wolf,” the witcher says. “Not my brother.”

“Ah, right.” Jaskier remembers Geralt telling him about the bad blood between the Wolf and Cat Schools, though Geralt was skimpy on the details, as per usual.

“Doesn’t matter anymore,” Geralt told Jaskier when pressed for more information. “They’re all dead. Their school tore itself apart.”

Jaskier faces this very-much-alive Cat witcher and tries to mimic the other man’s pleasant smile, like this is a friendly visit and he isn’t acutely aware that this witcher could snap his neck before Jaskier was even aware that he moved. “Are you here to kill me?”

“You? No.”

Something cold curdles in Jaskier’s gut. He drops the veneer of pleasantness. “If you’re here to kill Geralt, that’s not going to happen.”

“Oh?” The witcher tilts his head to the side.

“You’re not touching him.”

“Huh. And what are you going to do to stop me?”

“No idea,” Jaskier says simply. “But I promise you, I’ve survived scarier things than you.”

There’s a tense moment of silence as Jaskier and the witcher regard each other. Then a smile spreads over the witcher’s face. Not his earlier smirk, but a wide, genuine smile. His teeth are sharper than the Wolf witchers Jaskier knows. “You know, when I found out that Geralt of Rivia was in a relationship with a human, and a wannabe blogger at that, I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. I see it now.”

“Thanks?” Jaskier isn’t entirely sure that was a compliment— what the fuck does the witcher mean by _wannabe_ blogger— but he’s not about to argue with the superhuman holding a knife.

The witcher stands. He’s shorter than Jaskier by a couple of inches, with a lithe— almost feline— dancer’s build. Jaskier isn’t foolish enough to think that would matter if the witcher decides to kill him. The witcher approaches him, still flipping the knife in the air and catching it, and Jaskier holds very, very still.

“Whatever the person who hired you is offering, we can work something out,” Jaskier says. “If nothing else, there are three Wolf witchers and a Griffin witcher who will track your ass down if anything happens to Geralt and me.”

Well, Eskel, Vesemir, and Coën would track this witcher down. With Lambert, it would depend on the day.

“I’m not afraid of the Wolf school.”

“That seems short-sighted of you, since there are four of them left, and last I heard, the Cat school had all died off.”

The witcher flips the knife in the air again. This time, the blade comes perilously close to Jaskier’s face. Involuntarily, Jaskier flinches.

Something flickers across the Cat’s face and he steps back. “Luckily for you, I’m not here to kill you or the White Wolf.”

Jaskier blinks at him. “What was the knife for then?”

The witcher shrugs. “Wanted to see what you would do. Didn’t shit yourself, so I’m impressed.”

“Oh, so glad I passed muster.” Jaskier reaches up to touch his throat to reassure himself that it remains unslit. “Oh, and also, _fuck you._ ”

The other man looks unrepentant. “I’m four hundred years old, kid. Got to get my laughs while I can.”

Jaskier just scowls at him. “So who the fuck are you and what do you want?”

“The name’s Aiden.”

***

Geralt is fucking tired of being a human.

He expected the little indignities— needing more food to be satisfied, but not being able to eat _too_ much without feeling sick, actually needing to sleep every night to be functional, his diminished strength and speed. But he didn’t expect the ache in his lower back that’s been there for over a week now. He doesn’t even know what he did to cause it; he’s pretty sure he just slept wrong. He didn’t expect to not be able to see long-distance without a pair of glasses. He didn’t expect to have so much trouble pinning down a job.

When he was a witcher, he could blame long stretches without a job on circumstance. Monsters weren’t as common as they had been a couple of centuries ago. Even when monsters popped up, a well-trained human with a gun could be just as effective at killing them as a witcher. Now that he’s a human, Geralt has to admit that he has no skills except handling a sword, and there are few jobs in the human world that require that. His job as a bouncer at a bar was decent enough, up until he got fired for “scaring the customers.”

“I thought that was what a bouncer was supposed to do,” Geralt said when he was fired.

The manager, a squirrely little man who had spent the entirety of Geralt’s employment petrified of him, replied, “Not so much that they don’t come back.”

Geralt was pretty sure he could have intimidated the man into changing his mind, but it wasn’t worth the trouble. So he took his last paycheck and went home to Jaskier.

That was six months ago and Geralt still hasn’t found anything. This morning’s interview for a job as a bodyguard seemed promising, up until the interviewer realized that Geralt didn’t have any references for bodyguard positions, because all his potential references have been dead for at least a century. They told Geralt they would be in touch, but he doesn’t think they will be. This is the fourth job interview he’s had in the last month, and not a single person has “been in touch” afterwards.

Geralt pulls Roach— almost fixed up enough that he sometimes forgets that this isn’t the Roach he had for nearly thirty years— into the driveway and closes his eyes. Jaskier seems fine with their new reality. He’s back to working as a barista a couple of shifts a week, on top of his blog and increasing the amount of gigs he’s playing. The book he wrote about his travels with Geralt comes out next year, and he got a decent advance for it. But if Geralt doesn’t find work soon, they won’t be able to afford rent at their townhouse anymore. Just the other night, Jaskier mentioned that there were apartments available in his shitty old building. The very thought makes Geralt grimace.

He takes a deep breath and climbs out of the car, hoping that he doesn’t radiate as much misery as he’s feeling. He’s already a financial burden on Jaskier; he refuses to be an emotional one as well. In the year since he was turned into a human, he knows Jaskier has been worried about him. He doesn’t hover as much as he did right after it happened, but Geralt finds Jaskier watching him often, forehead scrunched with concern.

Geralt doesn’t want to be a burden, because he’s acutely aware that if he becomes too much for Jaskier to handle and Jaskier decides to leave him, he’ll be alone.

He shakes away that melodramatic thought. It does him no good to dwell on such things, he reminds himself as he steps through the front door.

Jaskier is at the kitchen table, his back turned to Geralt. Sitting across from him is a witcher. Every muscle in Geralt’s body braces for an attack as soon as he sees the Cat School medallion hanging around the witcher’s neck. He doesn’t know this Cat; but that doesn’t mean much. Geralt has always made a point of not knowing any Cats. Like most witchers of his school, the Cat is smaller and more lithe than any Wolf witcher. Most people would look at him and Geralt and think that, of the two, Geralt is the more dangerous one. Even a year ago, that wouldn’t necessarily have been the case.

Jaskier twists around in his chair to face Geralt. He doesn’t look frightened, exactly, but there’s a tension to his features that Geralt only usually sees when Jaskier is on edge. Not for the first time, Geralt hates that he can no longer hear Jaskier’s heartbeat or smell if he’s afraid. The scent of Jaskier’s terror always made Geralt sick to his stomach, but at least it would tell him how much danger they’re in right now.

Then he sees the knife sitting on the table. The witcher’s hand rests with affected casualness next to the hilt, not quite touching it, but so that he could pick it up and throw it at Geralt in a heartbeat. Or plunge it into Jaskier’s heart.

“I’m fine,” Jaskier says quickly.

The Cat witcher’s fingers twitch, like he’s thinking about reaching for the knife, and Geralt moves without thinking. There’s a threat in his home and Jaskier is sitting there, too close to the potential danger. Five hundred years of instincts take over. The Cat doesn’t stand up as Geralt approaches. He doesn’t even move until Geralt is almost upon him. It’s not until Geralt goes for the knife that he keeps in his boot that the Cat leaps to his feet with inhuman grace and seizes Geralt’s wrist, wrenching his arm behind his back. Geralt grunts as he’s slammed against the wall, the Cat pinning him in place easily.

“You know, it would be nice if you Wolves would at least try to be surprising sometimes,” the Cat says. “Do you all have to be so fucking predictable?”

“It would be nice if Cats weren’t always such pieces of shit.” Geralt’s mind races as he struggles against the witcher’s hold. He won’t win this fight. He could try to delay the witcher long enough that Jaskier could escape, but he knows that’s a fool’s errand. Jaskier’s concern for Geralt has always trumped his own survival instincts; he won’t run, even if it means saving his own life.

“But you’re not a Wolf anymore, are you?” the Cat murmurs and Geralt sees red.

He throws his head back, colliding with the witcher’s face. Pain shoots through the back of his head, but witcher the grunts and loosens his grip on Geralt. Geralt takes advantage of his momentary distraction, throwing himself back with all the strength he can muster. While the Cat is off balance, Geralt turns and casts Aard. The Cat is taken off guard— he clearly wasn’t expecting Geralt to retain his abilities to cast signs— and doesn’t throw his Quen shield up in time. He’s thrown across the kitchen, slamming against the oven.

Geralt draws his knife as the witcher straightens. There’s a feral glint in the Cat’s eye.

“Aiden!” Jaskier steps between them, hands raised, and Geralt’s heart leaps into his throat. “You said you weren’t here to hurt us.”

The Cat freezes mid-stride, eyes flickering between Jaskier and Geralt.

“Aiden?” Geralt reaches out to pull Jaskier back, knife clenched in his other hand. “Lambert’s Aiden?”

At the sound of Lambert’s name, the rage in the Cat’s eyes seems to diminish and his pleasant facade slides back into place. “Lambert’s, huh? Bit presumptuous of you, Wolf.”

“Lambert’s friend,” Geralt corrects himself, though in truth, he never knew the details of Lambert and Aiden’s relationship. Never really wanted to know, to be honest. “You’re dead.”

“So I’ve been told. Didn’t stick, apparently.”

“Lambert and I avenged you.”

“Thank you for that, by the way. Made my afterlife much easier.” Aiden grins, showing too many sharp teeth. “It’s pure luck that I didn’t die, so you didn’t kill any innocents on my behalf. No need to frown so much.”

“That’s just his face,” Jaskier says helpfully.

Geralt stares at the Cat. “Lambert’s been mourning you for three hundred years.” Or at least, Geralt thinks he has. His youngest brother was always a prickly little fucker, but he became much worse after Aiden’s death. Lambert used to smile, laugh, show the occasional flash of non-ironic happiness. These days, he mostly drinks and makes sarcastic comments. Geralt can’t remember the last time he saw Lambert genuinely happy.

The witcher’s smile wilts. “Ah, well, it was better for everyone if he thought I was dead. You know how it is. I’m the last left of my school. Sometimes, it’s best—”

Geralt crosses the kitchen and punches him in the face. It hurts his hand like a bitch, but the Cat doesn’t even flinch.

“Geralt!” Jaskier cries.

Aiden reaches up and touches his nose, then looks at Geralt with a raised eyebrow. “Huh, not bad for a human.”

Jaskier drags Geralt backwards. “Are you done antagonizing him?” he asks Aiden.

“Probably not.”

“I can see why you and Lambert are such good friends.” Jaskier rolls his eyes. “Aiden, put down your knife, sit down, and tell Geralt what you just told me.”

To Geralt’s surprise, the Cat complies, sitting down and leaning back languidly to prop his feet up on one of the empty chairs. Geralt is sure it’s a display meant to hammer in how unintimidated Aiden is by his presence. It puts his teeth on edge, but there’s nothing to be done about it. He checks Jaskier over for injuries, relieved when he doesn’t see any obvious wounds. Jaskier smiles reassuringly at him, seeming to know what Geralt is thinking, and goes to sit down across from Aiden.

Geralt positions himself next to Jaskier’s chair, ready to put himself between Jaskier and Aiden at the first sign of trouble. “Why are you here?” he asks Aiden.

“I’m here because the Eternal Fire has put a hit out on you,” Aiden says. “Twenty-five thousand crowns for your head and a five thousand crown bonus for Jaskier’s.”

Geralt reaches out and puts a hand on Jaskier’s shoulder. “So, you’re here to kill us.”

“No, I’m here to warn you.”

Geralt snorts. “I find that hard to believe. Your school has never had a problem killing fellow witchers.”

“I owe you for killing Karadin,” Aiden says. “I don’t forget my debts. Anyway, I have no desire to have the remaining Wolf witchers gunning for me.”

“Well, then.” Geralt gestures towards the door. “Thank you for the warning. Get out.”

“Geralt,” Jaskier hisses.

Aiden cocks his head to the side. “You don’t seem to be taking this seriously.”

“I take this very seriously. I just don’t fucking trust you or want you in my house.”

“Fair enough.” Aiden shrugs. “Look, now that Jaskier is blogging about Eskel’s monster hunting escapades instead of yours, speculation has gotten out that you’ve gotten yourself seriously wounded. People know that you’re vulnerable and the Eternal Fire wants to make an example of you. It seems you pissed them off recently.”

“That was me, actually,” Jaskier says. “And it was a year ago. They really should have gotten over it by now.”

“The Eternal Fire doesn’t forget their grudges,” Aiden says. “They have your home address. They know what shifts Jaskier works at the coffee shop. They know what time you take your morning runs. You two need to go underground.”

Jaskier reaches up to take Geralt’s hand, lacing their fingers together.

“Maybe you two should head to Kaer Morhen for a bit,” Aiden says. “At least until this all blows over.”

Every alarm bell in Geralt’s bed goes off at once. “And why would we do that?”

“Because the Eternal Fire thinks that Kaer Morhen is just a lifeless ruin in the Blue Mountains. Most people do. They wouldn’t know to look for you there. You’d be safe.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“And,” Aiden says and Geralt knows this is where the other shoe will drop. There’s no way the Cat traveled to Posada just to deliver a friendly warning. He wants something. “Maybe you would be willing to bring a guest.”

“I’m going to bring a guest.” Geralt jerks his chin at Jaskier. “Him.”

“Two guests then,” the Cat says, unperturbed.

“Why would you want to come to Kaer Morhen?” Jaskier asks. “I thought the Wolf and Cat Schools didn’t get along.”

“Oh, that was overblown.” Aiden waves a dismissive hand.

“Overblown?” Geralt growls. “You traitorous fuckers attacked us.”

“I wasn’t one of the traitorous fuckers that orchestrated that. The ones who did are all dead.” Some of Aiden’s pleasant facade seems to crack, which is almost enough to make Geralt like him. “I have no quarrel with the Wolf School, aside from the fact that you’re all humorless fuckers.”

“If they’re such humorless fuckers, why would you want to come to Kaer Morhen?” Jaskier asks, interrupting Geralt’s significantly less polite reply.

“Let’s just say I could stand to get away for a bit.”

“No, let’s not just say that.” Geralt is impressed by the steel in Jaskier’s voice. “If you’re going to come to Kaer Morhen, you’re going to need to give a damn good reason.”

“My kindness in warning you that there’s a price on your head isn’t enough?”

“No,” Geralt and Jaskier say at the same time.

Aiden is silent for a moment, then he lets out a deep sigh. “The Eternal Fire tried to hire me for this job. I refused. Two days later, got home and my fucking house was on fire. Lost everything.”

“Fuck,” Jaskier says.

But Geralt isn’t so easily impressed. “Never known a Cat to turn down a payout, especially not thirty thousand crowns.”

“I don’t kill other witchers, not unless they’re bastards like Karadin. And I don’t associate with crazy fuckers like the Eternal Fire.”

“Hm,” Geralt says.

“There’s a hit out on my head now too,” Aiden says. “Ten thousand crowns. Not sure why I’m worth less than you, though at least I’m worth more than the blogger.”

Jaskier makes a face at that.

“On my own, it’s only a matter of time before they find me.” Aiden’s mouth twists bitterly. “Kaer Morhen is the only safe place I can think of to hide.”

Geralt glances over at Jaskier, who is looking between him and Aiden. Jaskier’s face is an open book; Geralt can see the worry there clearly. He knows that if given the chance, Jaskier would take the Cat under their protection without hesitation, because that’s the kind of person Jaskier is. Geralt loves him for that, even if he doesn’t trust the Cat as far as he can throw him.

Still, Aiden is Lambert’s friend. Lambert has been grieving for him for centuries. If Lambert found out that Geralt had the chance to help Aiden and didn’t, Lambert would never forgive Geralt. And Lambert may be an annoying little shit, but he’s Geralt’s annoying little shit. Geralt doesn’t want to see him hurt again.

“Please,” Aiden says, the word sounding pained.

Geralt meets Jaskier’s eyes and sees Aiden’s plea mirrored there. “I’ll need to check with Vesemir.”

“Thank you.” Aiden looks relieved. “You won’t regret this.”

Geralt already does.

***

Jaskier watches as Geralt paces back and forth across their bedroom while he talks on the phone with Vesemir. From Geralt’s side of the conversation, it’s impossible to tell how their talk is going. “Yes. No. Probably not. Understood.”

Pacing was never something Geralt did much of as a witcher. He used to be capable of holding still for hours. But as a human, Geralt seems to have lost some of his stillness. He’s not as fidgety as Jaskier, but he moves around more— pacing when he’s on the phone, bouncing his foot when he’s impatient or anxious, playing with his hair when he’s lost in thought.

Jaskier takes a moment to admire the graceful way his boyfriend moves. Geralt doesn’t look all that different than he did when he was a witcher. His eyes are brown, he wears wire-rimmed glasses now, and his physique a little less chiseled— human metabolism doesn’t allow for effortless eight pack abs, much to Geralt’s consternation— but his hair is still the same stark white and his face is still the grumpy, beautiful face that Jaskier loves so much.

“Okay, see you soon,” Geralt says and hangs up.

“So?” Jaskier says.

“Yennefer or Triss will come to portal us to Kaer Morhen in the morning.” Geralt doesn’t look pleased about this. “The Cat can come.”

From the guest room across the hall, Aiden calls, “Thanks, Wolf!”

Geralt grimaces. “I can’t believe you let him stay the night.”

“He has nowhere else to go,” Jaskier says. “His house burned down.”

“Cats can’t be trusted. We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t kill us in our sleep.”

“Geralt, he can hear you.”

“Well aware.”

Jaskier snorts and shoves another sweatshirt into his suitcase. Even though it’s almost May, he knows it’s going to be cold in the mountains. “I think if he was going to kill us, he could have done it at any point tonight. No need to wait until we’re asleep. And I like him.”

“You would befriend a zeugl if it came with a tragic backstory.”

“No, not a zeugl. Crawling around in sewers isn’t my thing. A basilisk, maybe. Which one of these sweaters should I bring?”

Geralt looks between the two sweaters in Jaskier’s hands. “Aren’t they the same sweater?”

“Are you colorblind _and_ nearsighted now, Geralt?”

Geralt shakes his head and goes back to pacing. Jaskier packs both sweaters. 

“You’re going to miss work,” Geralt says.

Jaskier lifts Mousesack out of his suitcase. The cat promptly climbs back in and Jaskier finds another place in the suitcase to put his boxers. “I work twelve hours a week in a coffee shop. Marina likes me enough that she’ll make sure there’s a shift for me whenever I come back.” He has several promising gigs coming up and losing those will be more of a hardship than giving up the job, but Jaskier doesn’t feel the need to bring that up. His boyfriend already deals with enough misplaced guilt; Jaskier doesn’t plan on adding to it.

“The important thing is us being safe,” he reminds Geralt. “And figuring out why the hell they’re only asking for five thousand crowns for my head. I’m worth at least as much as Aiden, I think. I mean, I infiltrated their stronghold. Or the bar they hang out at. I deeply annoyed their leader. I feel like that’s worth more than a ‘oh, I guess kill this guy too if it’s convenient.’”

“Jaskier.” There isn’t a trace of humor in Geralt’s voice. “The only reason they have a hit out on you is because of me. The only reason you’re on their radar is because of me.”

“And the only reason _you’re_ on their radar is because of my blog.” Jaskier holds out his arms to Geralt. “Come here.”

Geralt crosses the room to wrap Jaskier up in his arms, tucking his face against Jaskier’s neck like he always does when he wants to feel Jaskier’s pulse and reassure himself that Jaskier is okay. It makes Jaskier melt every time. “We have to go to Kaer Morhen,” Geralt says, sounding miserable about it. “If they come for us here, I won’t be able to protect you.”

Something in Jaskier’s chest squeezes. “You don’t always have to protect me, love.”

Geralt doesn’t say anything for a long time and Jaskier stares at the ceiling, heartsick all over again for something that happened over a year ago. For the first few months of Geralt being a human, things seemed fine. Geralt didn’t love his job as a bouncer, but he seemed reasonably content. He adjusted to changes like the glasses and the reduced strength. Jaskier always knew it would be a long road for Geralt to completely come to terms with what Nilfgaard did to him, but little things like getting a new Roach and seeing Eskel and Coen regularly seemed to help.

And then he lost his job after nearly six months. Around the same time, Jaskier got hurt while on a ekimma hunt with Eskel. It was a minor wound; the creature barely got its teeth into Jaskier before Eskel decapitated it. Still, Jaskier will never forget the look on Geralt’s face when he saw the bandage on Jaskier’s neck— the rage and despair, like Geralt himself had been the one to put that wound there.

After that, Geralt stopped seeming comfortable in his new skin. As the months went on and he continuously failed to get a job— being rejected as a park ranger because he doesn’t have a degree, then as a security guard because he refuses to carry a gun, then a bodyguard and so on and so forth— he became dejected. Geralt never complains when Jaskier goes off with Eskel for a hunt, but he always seems diminished when Jaskier returns. 

Maybe going to Kaer Morhen will help, Jaskier thinks. Or maybe it will remind Geralt of everything he lost and traumatize him all over again.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Kaer Morhen,” he tells Geralt.

“Don’t know why. It’s a drafty old ruin. Won’t be any wi-fi.”

“I can survive without wi-fi. I have a backlog of blog posts. I can schedule them before we leave.” Jaskier runs his fingers through Geralt’s hair. “I want to see where you grew up. Where it all began.”

“Aren’t going to be a lot of fluffy childhood memories there, Jask. Won’t be any electricity or running water either.”

Jaskier winces. “Well, at least it will be good to see Ciri.”

Yennefer and Triss have brought Ciri over for dinner a few times in the past year, but Jaskier misses her. He misses all three of them, really.

“Look, this will be good,” Jaskier says. “We could both do with getting away for a bit. I can finish edits on my book. You can spend some time with your brothers. Most importantly, we’ll be safe.”

“Hm.”

Jaskier presses a kiss to his boyfriend’s shoulder, then lets him go so he can finish packing. “And hey, if nothing else, maybe we’ll finally have a vacation where neither one of us nearly dies.”

***

Geralt is woken up by a hand covering his mouth. For a disorienting second— and damn if he doesn’t miss his witcher ability to snap to full wakefulness at the first sign of trouble— he thinks it's Jaskier’s hand and wonders what the hell his boyfriend is playing at. Then he realizes that he can feel the warmth of Jaskier’s body next to him, still sleeping soundly. Geralt reaches for the knife he keeps on his bedside table.

“We have company.” It’s Aiden, his voice low in Geralt’s ear. “A lot of company. Don’t make a sound. They can’t know that we know they’re here.”

“Aiden?” Jaskier murmurs sleepily. “What are you—”

Aiden hushes him. “Six men just let themselves in the back door. All armed with guns.”

Geralt goes cold all over at that. Next to him, Jaskier makes a soft, distressed noise. His hand finds Geralt’s arm and squeezes.

Aiden withdraws his hand from Geralt’s mouth. “Do you have a way to contact your sorceress friends?”

“Yeah, a cell phone,” Geralt snarls. He knows the witcher can hear his heart beating too fast and smell his rising fear and fuck if that isn’t humiliating.

Luckily, Aiden doesn’t comment. “Call them. These guys are professionals. I can probably hold them off, but there could be more coming.”

Geralt hears Jaskier fumbling for his cell phone. “Oh fuck, fuck…”

“Relax, Jask,” Aiden says with all the nonchalance of someone on their way to brunch. “You two are my ticket into Kaer Morhen. I’m not about to let you die.”

“Oh, thanks so much, Aiden.” Jaskier’s sarcasm is belied by the way his voice shakes.

Geralt hates that he can only see the outlines of Aiden and Jaskier. He hates that he can’t hear a damn thing from downstairs over the thundering of his own heartbeat. He feels useless.

“Yennefer,” Jaskier hisses. “Yes, I know what time it is. Do you think I’d be calling you if it weren’t important? We need a portal to Kaer Morhen now. There’s—”

“Both of you, get down.” Aiden seizes Geralt by the arm and drags him off the bed, shoving him to the floor. A moment later, Jaskier lands next to Geralt with a soft yelp. Before Geralt can protest, the door flies open and gunfire fills the air.

Geralt climbs on top of Jaskier to pin him flat to the floor, covering him with his body the best he can and casting Quen. He can feel Jaskier’s mouth moving against his chin, but can’t tell if his boyfriend is trying to speak to him or just mouthing silent prayers. 

Geralt can hear nothing over the sounds of gunshots and screaming and he can’t tell if the screaming belongs to Aiden, to the assassins, or all of the above. Once upon a time, he would have been able to see and hear everything happening in this room. He thinks about reaching for his knife, but it won’t do him any good. He can only hold on to Jaskier with one arm and hold Quen with the other, hoping the shield will be enough.

If Aiden weren’t here, they would be dead, Geralt realizes. Geralt wouldn’t have heard the killers coming. He probably wouldn’t have woken up until the door flew open. They would have been shot dead in their beds before Geralt even realized what was happening. Jaskier would be dead. At the thought, Geralt pulls him closer, like if he hugs Jaskier tight enough, he’ll be able to protect him.

Geralt has never hated being human more than he does at this moment, when Jaskier is shaking underneath him and he doesn’t need to be able to smell his fear to know how terrified the man he loves is.

A stinging pain slices across Geralt’s back and Geralt can’t stop a surprised cry from escaping his lips. Jaskier clutches at his face frantically.

“I’m fine,” Geralt tries to tell him, but he’s not even sure if Jaskier can hear him.

The ringing in Geralt’s ears is so loud that he doesn’t realize the gunfire has ceased until the lights turn on.

“Well, fuck,” Aiden drawls. “I made a mess in here.”

Geralt lets out a ragged breath of relief.

“Geralt, you’re hit.” Jaskier’s voice is raw and broken.

“It’s fine,” Geralt says automatically.

“No, it’s not. Turn over, let me see.”

Groaning, Geralt manages to roll off Jaskier. He winces as trembling fingers prod at his back.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Jaskier breathes. “I think it just grazed you.”

Geralt’s limbs feel shaky in the aftermath of the adrenaline. He forces himself up to his knees and surveys the destruction. The room is a ruined mess, with bullet holes peppering the walls and the furniture. Both windows are shattered. By the door, there are six corpses scattered over the ground, blood and viscera pooling around them. In the middle of it all, Aiden stands. He’s splattered in blood, but appears unharmed. He has Mousesack tucked under one arm and is scratching the cat under the chin. The fool creature is purring.

“Well, that was fun.” Aiden’s eyes sparkle. “Maybe we should stick around and see if more of them show up.”

Before Geralt can think of a suitable reply for that, a portal opens up and Yennefer steps through, followed by Eskel and Coën, who both have their swords drawn. Yennefer has fire blazing on her palms, but when she sees the corpses, she lets it vanish.

“What the fuck happened here?” she demands.

***

Jaskier wishes that he could stop to appreciate his first view of Kaer Morhen. He wishes that he weren’t still seeing the insides of those six hitmen spread out over his bedroom floor. As he steps through Yennefer’s portal, he can barely take in the majesty of the room they arrive in. Before him is a tall stone fireplace with a long, wooden table in front of it. Jaskier sinks down onto the bench, legs still feeling a bit shaky.

“Alright, Jaskier?” Eskel squeezes his shoulder.

“Oh, you know.” Jaskier’s voice comes out a croak. “Just coming to terms with my own mortality. Again.”

His suitcase was ripped apart by bullets and most of its contents are a loss, but his lute was thankfully blocked by the dresser. Jaskier will mourn some of his favorite clothes and his seventy-five crown moisturizer later. Right now, he’s just happy that he and Geralt are both alive and that it wasn’t so much worse.

Jaskier doesn’t realize that Vesemir is there until he hears a deep, rumbling voice say, “So you’re the Cat.”

Jaskier looks up to see the old witcher standing at the bottom of a stone staircase, arms crossed over his chest. He approaches Aiden slowly. Aiden, who is still covered in blood and holding a purring Mousesack in his arms, doesn’t so much as blink.

“And you’re Vesemir,” Aiden says. “Lambert spoke highly of you.”

Jaskier doesn't need to see the sarcastic twist of Aiden’s lips to know he’s lying. Lambert and Vesemir’s relationship can be called prickly, at best.

“You’re welcome to take shelter here for as long as you need to,” Vesemir says coolly. “As long as you don’t endanger a single person in this keep. If you try to harm anyone inside these walls, you won’t live long enough to regret it. Do I make myself clear?”

“I believe you.” Aiden looks more amused than intimidated, which doesn’t say much about his survival instincts.

“If you’re not afraid of me, at least have the wits about you to be afraid of her.” Vesemir nods to Yennefer, who flashes her patented ‘I will kill you and enjoy every minute of it’ smile.

Aiden has the good sense to at least try and look intimidated. “Where is Lambert?”

“He took Ciri camping,” Vesemir says. “Survival training. They’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Ah.” A complicated mix of emotions cross Aiden’s face. Jaskier can’t tell if Aiden is disappointed that Lambert isn’t here, or relieved that he won’t have to see him yet.

Jaskier’s heart rate is finally slowing enough that he can take stock of his surroundings. Kaer Morhen is exactly what he was expecting, with stone walls, high ceilings, and sweeping staircases, except for—

“Since when do we have electricity?” Geralt looks up at the overhead light like it’s personally offended his honor.

“Hm?” Vesemir glances up at the ceiling. “When did we renovate, Eskel? Fifty or so years ago?”

“About that.” Eskel throws an arm around Geralt’s shoulders. “We have working plumbing now too. No more shitting in a hole out back.”

“Oh, lovely.” Yennefer wrinkles her nose.

Jaskier glances over at Geralt and sees that his boyfriend looks troubled. “You haven’t been here in fifty years?”

“Longer than that,” Vesemir says before Geralt can answer. “Geralt hasn’t been here in seventy-four years.”

Jaskier frowns. He knows that Geralt hadn’t seen any of his brothers in a long time before they ran into Lambert two summers ago. He doesn’t think there was any schism that caused the long separation; he always got the impression from Geralt that it was normal for him to go for long periods without seeing the others. But seventy-four years is longer than Jaskier expected Geralt to go without seeing the only family he has left and something in Vesemir’s tone tells Jaskier that this wasn’t normal.

“Cell phones only really work in the North Tower,” Eskel says, either oblivious to the silent tension between Geralt and Vesemir or choosing to ignore it. Knowing Eskel, it’s probably the latter. “But we have wi-fi in the library, so you’ll be able to work on your blog, Jask.”

“Come on, Geralt.” Yennefer takes Geralt by the elbow. “Let me take a look at that wound on your back.”

“It’s just a—”

“If you say it’s just a flesh wound, Geralt, that scratch will become the least of your problems.”

Geralt glowers, but lets her lead him away.

“Come on, Jask,” Eskel says. “I’ll give you a tour in the morning. For now, I’ll show you to Geralt’s room.”

Jaskier wants to explore every inch of the keep right now, but exhaustion beats out curiosity. Taking Mousesack from Aiden’s arms, he follows Eskel upstairs.

***

The old Kaer Morhen infirmary is gone, long buried under rubble, but one of the old armories has been converted into a new infirmary. It even has a sink with running water. Seeing running water at Kaer Morhen feels a bit like the time Jaskier put Mousesack in a sweater and a little hat. It’s not unpleasant, but it just doesn’t seem right.

Propped up on his elbows on the infirmary bed, Geralt grimaces at the press of Yennefer’s fingers against his back. “This really isn’t necessary,” he grumbles.

“Yes, I was just going to let you bleed all over your bedsheets and your boyfriend so you can prove some kind of machismo bullshit,” she says flatly.

“If I’m going to be healed against my will, can it at least be Triss doing the healing? She has a better bedside manner.”

“Triss is asleep and doesn’t deserve to have to put up with your grumbling.” She’s quiet for a moment as she works. “Can we trust the Cat?”

“Hm, probably not. But he seems to care about Lambert, so I don’t think he’s actively dangerous to us. Plus, he saved Jaskier’s life.”

“And yours,” Yennefer reminds him. “Do I need to remind you of what this bullet could have done to you if it had hit you at a different angle? If it hadn’t just been a graze?”

“Not necessary, Yenn. There’s a reason I don’t like guns.” Geralt learned long ago that angry humans with guns are more dangerous than any monsters. He’d rather face down a rampaging fiend than an asshole with a gun and something to prove.

“There, all healed.” She steps back from the bed and goes to wash her hands. “All that whining for a few minutes of work.”

“Wasn’t whining.” Geralt sits up to pull his shirt back on.

“Oh, that is bullshit.” But her eyes twinkle with amusement. “It will be good to have you and Jaskier here for a while. Jaskier annoys Lambert enough that he might go camping until you leave.”

“One can only hope.” Geralt stretches and stands up.

“Remember the way back to your room?” Yennefer asks.

“I think I can manage it.”

She gives him a long, considering look. “Seventy-four years is a long time not to be back here.”

Geralt shrugs. “Didn’t realize it had been that long.”

“Did you really go over seventy years without seeing Vesemir or the others?”

“I’m five hundred years old, Yenn. What’s seventy years?”

“Almost as long as a human lifespan. You used to come back every winter. No matter what was going on in the world.” Her brow furrows. “You didn’t stop coming back because of what happened with us, did you?”

“No,” Geralt says quickly. “It had nothing to do with us.”

“Then what happened?”

He shrugs. “Just… lost track of time.”

She doesn’t look convinced. “For seventy-four years.”

Geralt sighs. “Yes, for seventy-four years. I should get back to Jaskier before he decides to go wandering and falls out a window.”

“Fine,” she says. “Sleep well, Geralt.”

“Thanks.” He reaches back to touch the place where the bullet grazed and finds only smooth, unblemished skin. Yennefer may not be a natural healer like Triss, but she still knows what she’s doing. “Goodnight, Yenn.”

Geralt heads upstairs. At least the layout of the keep hasn’t changed, even if he can now turn on a lightswitch to navigate the steep staircases rather than feeling his way in the dark. Which is a good thing, since he can’t see shit in the dark. He has no idea how he managed to survive without breaking his neck pre-Trials, when he would sneak into the kitchens with Eskel and Gweld in the middle of the night to steal food that wasn’t the horrible mushrooms they used to feed the trainees.

Geralt hasn’t thought of Gweld in a long time. A lump rises in his throat at the memory of his kind, redheaded brother. Jaskier and Gweld would have liked each other.

His feet follow the familiar path to his old bedroom. It’s exactly how he left it seventy-four years ago— a narrow bed, a chest of drawers, a rack for his weapons. A small horse figurine a woodworker whittled for him as payment for saving the man’s son from a bruxa perches on top of the chest of drawers, the only personal touch in the room.

Except for Jaskier’s things, which already seem to have exploded over every square inch of floor. Jaskier himself is already sprawled across the bed, limbs akimbo, with Mousesack curled up on his pillow next to him. Something about seeing Jaskier in the bed Geralt slept alone in every winter for centuries— Yennefer rarely joined him in Kaer Morhen, preferring to spend her winters in warmer climates— does something peculiar to Geralt’s heart. The feeling only intensifies when Jaskier looks up at him, eyes bleary with sleep.

“Your back okay?” Jaskier murmurs.

“I told you, it was nothing.”

“Yeah, but you’ve said that when your intestines were spilling out of you, so forgive us if no one believed you.”

Geralt snorts and strips off his clothes to join Jaskier in bed. It’s a testament to how tired Jaskier is that his state of undress doesn’t even merit an eyebrow waggle.

The bed is narrow, but they’ve shared smaller beds. Jaskier fits against Geralt easily, his back pressed against Geralt’s chest. Geralt slips an arm around Jaskier’s waist and presses his face to the spot between Jaskier’s shoulder blades, nuzzling at the soft skin.

“I know you don’t really like Aiden,” Jaskier says softly. “But I’m really glad he was there tonight.”

Geralt thinks back to how helpless he felt as he tried to shield Jaskier from bullets with nothing but his body and a Quen shield that seemed far too flimsy. “So am I,” he has no choice but to admit.

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Jaskier settles into life at Kaer Morhen and Lambert and Aiden reunite, Geralt deals with the memories stirred up by returning home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy November, everyone! Thank you for all your comments and kudos on the last chapter.

Jaskier wakes up to an empty bed.

This isn’t an unusual occurrence; Geralt has always been an early riser. Now that they no longer do self-defense training six mornings a week, Jaskier has no reason to get up earlier than nine most days, unless he’s working the opening shift at the coffee shop. So it shouldn’t be a surprise when he rolls over and finds the spot next to him empty.

Except something about waking up in an empty bed in a strange place the morning after he and Geralt nearly died in a hail of bullets sends a jolt of anxiety through Jaskier. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself that he’s being irrational. He and Geralt are in a remote keep with four witchers and two sorceresses for company, with another witcher and a girl who can kill with a scream joining them, soon. This is quite possibly the safest place on the Continent. Shaking aside the lingering feeling of unease, he sits up and looks around.

He knows that Geralt isn't big on interior design— their townhouse looked like no one lived there before Jaskier moved in— but still, this room doesn’t live up to Jaskier’s fantasies about the mountaintop castle where Geralt grew up. All of Jaskier’s imaginings involved crackling fireplaces, bearskin rugs, and enormous four-poster beds. In retrospect, maybe he expected too much from an ancient ruin.

With a groan, Jaskier slides out of bed, shuddering when his feet hit the bare stone floors. Yeah, they’re going to need a rug in here. He heads down the hall to the bathroom and takes a long, hot shower. Geralt might be weirded out by it, but Jaskier is very, very happy that Kaer Morhen now has running water.

Once he’s gotten ready for the day in jeans and an old shirt of Geralt’s— he mourns all his nice sweaters shredded by bullets the night before— he finds Eskel on the stairs.

“Want your tour before or after breakfast?” Eskel asks.

Coffee and food sound phenomenal right now, but Jaskier has been waiting for nearly three years to get a glimpse of Kaer Morhen. “Hold on, let me go grab my phone. I’m going to have to take notes.”

First there’s the kitchen— which was probably the height of modernity when the keep was renovated fifty years ago— and the dining hall where Yennefer portaled them the night before. Adjoining the kitchen is the library, which used to be an indoor training room, according to Eskel.

“The old library got buried in the sacking, along with the laboratories, the main armory, and most of the instructor sleeping quarters,” Eskel says. “This is what we could salvage.”

If the enormous amount of books lining the walls is all the witchers could salvage, Jaskier wishes he could have seen the library they had before the sacking. It probably rivaled Oxenfurt’s library. Jaskier already knows this is going to be his favorite room in the keep, made better by the fact that it overlooks the training yard, where Coën and Vesemir are currently sparring. He already pictures long afternoons spent editing his book in here while he gets to watch Geralt train shirtless outside

Yeah, he thinks he’s going to like Kaer Morhen.

From the library, Eskel leads him upstairs and points out where everyone’s rooms, along with the second bathroom and the third bathroom that only Yennefer, Triss, and Ciri are allowed to use on pain of death. Eskel takes him up to the top of the north tower, which offers a stunning view of the Blue Mountains. Jaskier can already imagine canoodling with Geralt up here and looking at the stars. Or you know, not looking at the stars. The thought brings a smile to his face.

“Lambert and Ciri are coming back,” Eskel says suddenly in the middle of recounting Lambert’s favorite childhood pastime of diving off the North Tower while Eskel and Geralt used Aard to keep him from hitting the ground. Honestly, it’s a miracle any of them survived until adulthood. “We should go down to meet them. Ciri will be excited to see you.”

Jaskier and Eskel head down to the training yard, which sits in front of the keep. From the outside, the keep looks exactly like Jaskier imagined: an ancient stone castle carved into the side of the mountain. Well, half a castle. He can see where the lost library, armory, and laboratories were. The rubble was cleared away in the renovations fifty years before and grass has grown over what was once there, giving the keep a strangely unfinished look. It’s like a giant hand just reached down from the sky and carried away half of Kaer Morhen.

Vesemir is barking instructions to Coën, like the Griffin is an untrained boy and not a witcher who has been alive for at least five hundred years. Coën takes it with good humor. Jaskier looks around and spots Geralt sitting on a low stone wall nearby, watching Coën and Vesemir with an inscrutable expression. Aiden leans against the wall next to him, murmuring something too quiet for Jaskier to hear. If anything, Geralt’s expression grows stonier.

Vesemir steps back and looks over his shoulder. “Geralt, haven’t sparred with you in quite a while. Do you want a turn?”

Geralt’s posture grows oddly hunched, like a teenager caught on his phone past his bedtime. “Not today, Vesemir.”

“Are you sure?” Vesemir’s gaze is sharp. “You’re never too old to need to train. Look at Coën here.”

Coën grimaces, but stays quiet.

Before Geralt can answer, the high trill of a young woman’s voice exclaims, “Jaskier!”

Jaskier looks over his shoulder in time to see a blur of motion coming at him. The pink hair Ciri had last time he saw her is gone; her ashen blond hair is cut so short, her head nearly looks shaved. But everything else about her is just the same. He always thinks she’s grown taller every time he sees her, but that’s probably only because he remembers her as the small, nearly silent twelve year old he first met five years ago. Ciri tackles him into a hug, nearly knocking him over. Jaskier staggers back into Eskel and spins her around, laughing.

“One of these days, you’re going to do that and I’m actually going to fall over and split my head open,” he tells her.

“That’s why we have Yennefer and Triss.” She beams up at him, unrepentant. “Geralt!”

She runs over to embrace Geralt and Jaskier turns to see Lambert trudging towards them.

“Lambert!” Jaskier runs to greet him, something that he wouldn’t have dared do a year ago. But at this point, he’s fairly certain that the prickly redheaded witcher likes him— or at least, doesn’t actively wish for his demise. “There’s my fifth favorite witcher.”

“Ugh, what are you doing here?” Lambert allows himself to be hugged, which is practically an ‘I love you’ from Lambert. “I was wondering why I’ve had a migraine all day.”

“Witchers don’t get migraines.”

“They never used to before you came along.”

“Good to see you too, Lambert.” Jaskier pats him on the cheek, then remembers who’s standing only fifty or so feet away from them. Lambert is about to get the shock of his life, and Jaskier has no idea what to say to prepare him.

Eskel seems to be thinking the same thing, because he steps forwards. “Lambert, listen.”

But Lambert doesn’t seem to be listening, because he’s suddenly gone bone white. He’s staring past Jaskier with an expression on his face like he’s seen a corpse rise from its grave. Well, he’s probably seen plenty of corpses rise from their graves, but Jaskier decides that the simile still stands.

“Hey, Lam.” Aiden’s tone is unlike anything Jaskier has heard from him before. It’s soft, gentle, and almost loving.

Lambert stares at Aiden. Aiden stares at Lambert. Lambert’s face is frozen somewhere between shock and anger. Aiden is wearing a small, hopeful smile.

And then the spell is broken as Lambert draws his silver sword.

“Lambert!” Jaskier, Eskel, and Vesemir all shout as Lambert launches himself at Aiden. Aiden has his own sword— steel, Jaskier notices— unsheathed in an instant, but Lambert plows into him and Aiden pulls his blade away at the last moment, seemingly unwilling to hurt Lambert. They land on the ground with Lambert pinning Aiden down in the grass, his silver sword at Aiden’s throat.

“Lambert.” Eskel tries to pull Lambert back, but Lambert shrugs him off. Eskel hovers behind Lambert, hand hovering over Lambert’s shoulder.

“Cut me,” Aiden says.

Lambert’s face goes from white to gray to red. “What?”

“Go ahead, cut me with silver. Preferably not badly, that would be a pain in the ass, but just a little. I’m not a doppler, Lam. I’m me.”

Lambert’s hesitates, then removes his sword from Aiden’s throat. Carefully, he draws the tip of his blade across Aiden’s cheek. Aiden doesn’t flinch or break eye contact with Lambert.

Lambert pauses, breathing heavily, as Aiden’s face stays his face and doesn’t melt into the featureless blob of a doppler. “It could still be a trick. An illusion. Merigold!” He looks up, looking around for Triss and Yennefer. “What the fuck is the point of having a couple of sorceresses living here if—”

“I’m not an illusion either,” Aiden says. “And as much as I love having you on top of me, I don’t think this is the time or the place.”

Lambert doesn’t move. “You died.”

“Nearly. But I didn’t.”

“Geralt and I killed Karadin.”

“Which I’ll forever be grateful for, since it was only a matter of time before that backstabbing shit realized I was alive and came after me.”

“I found your medallion!” Lambert reaches down his shirt and yanks out a second medallion. It’s a Cat’s head. He dangles it over Aiden’s face. “I’ve been wearing this for three hundred fucking years! Whose is it?”

“Mine,” Aiden says softly. “I went to Karadin’s grave and stole his. Seemed like a final fuck you to the old bastard.”

Suddenly, Lambert pushes off the ground and reels backwards. Coën yanks Jaskier out of the way before he gets caught in the crossfire.

“I need a fucking drink,” Lambert snarls and stalks towards the keep. No one stops him. No one calls after him. Jaskier feels oddly embarrassed, like he just saw something that wasn’t meant for him.

Aiden wipes the blood off his face and extends a hand for someone to help him up. None of the other witchers move, so Jaskier goes to help him to his feet. Aiden murmurs a thanks. The Cat witcher’s posture is defeated, but he’s wearing an odd sort of smile on his face. If he were a human man, Jaskier would think he was about to burst into tears.

“Well, that didn’t go as well as I expected it to,” he says.

***

Lambert still hasn’t emerged from whatever corner of the keep he’s hiding in come dinnertime. Nobody remarks on his absence.

There used to be four long wooden tables in the dining hall at Kaer Morhen: one for the instructors and witchers visiting from the Path, one for the post-Trials trainees, one for the older pre-Trials trainees, and one for the little ones. Three of them are long gone, broken down and used for firewood years ago. It used to be that Vesemir, Geralt, Eskel, Lambert, and sometimes Coën would huddle at one end of the remaining table, with Vesemir at the head of the table. Now, for the first time in longer than Geralt cares to remember, the table is almost halfway full.

Jaskier sits across from Geralt, between Yennefer and Triss. He has an arm slung around Triss’s shoulders and they’re laughing together about something. Over the racket Coën, Vesemir, and Eskel are making while they argue about the particulars of a fiend hunt fifty years ago, Geralt can’t hear their conversation. Yennefer isn’t listening either; she’s keeping an eye on Aiden, who is entertaining Ciri by showing her some knife tricks. Geralt doesn’t like it any more than Yennefer does, but Ciri seems to be fascinated. The sound of talking and laughing fills the dining hall, bouncing off the stone walls and ceilings.

For a moment, Geralt is six years old again, sitting at another long table, surrounded by his brothers. He can almost taste the horrible mushrooms they used to make the trainees eat on his tongue.

And then Eskel claps him on the back, breaking him out of his reverie. “Wasn’t it you who fought the chort and the fiend at the same time in Velen, Wolf?”

“Hm?” Geralt drags his eyes away from the glint of Aiden’s blade in the lamplight. “No, the chort killed the fiend. I killed the chort.”

“Circle of life,” Eskel says.

“You’ve never told me any stories about fiends, Geralt.” Jaskier leans across the table, expression suddenly bright with interest.

“You never asked.”

“Oh no, I specifically remember asking multiple times, ‘Do you have any cool monster stories you haven’t told me about?’ And I always got a, ‘No, Jaskier, I’ve lived a simple, uneventful life for the last five centuries.’”

Geralt fights a smile. “That conversation never happened.”

“You calling me a liar?”

“Yes.”

Jaskier squawks in outrage, which Geralt can never tell anyone is one of his favorite sounds that Jaskier makes. He can also never tell anyone that he’s mentally ranked all the sounds that Jaskier makes.

“Oh, Eskel, remember that leshen in Brugge?”

“How could I forget?” Eskel asks dryly. “I told you to stay in the car. You didn’t.”

“There was a lot going on!” Jaskier throws his hands up in the air exasperatedly. “You can’t possibly expect me to stay in the car when you were fighting two wolves, a bear, and a flock of crows at the same time.”

“You went on a leshen hunt?” Geralt doesn’t mean for his voice to come out as cold as it does. Because there’s a reason he never took Jaskier on any hunts for anything as dangerous as a leshen. He’s known too many witchers who didn’t walk away from hunts like that.

“Contract was for wargs,” Eskel says, frowning as he looks between Jaskier and Geralt. “Turns out, they weren’t wargs, just aggressive, mind-controlled wolves.”

“I told you about it, Geralt.” There’s an edge to Jaskier’s voice, despite the fact that he hasn’t lost his teasing smile. “It was when I was gone for a week back in February. Remember?”

No, Geralt doesn’t remember, because he tries not to pay attention when Jaskier tells him about his hunts with Eskel. Especially since Jaskier got hurt by that ekimma, the only way Geralt doesn’t lose his mind every time Jaskier is out on a hunt is by pretending that his boyfriend is just spending the weekend with friends.

Eskel has a strange look on his face. “You should come with us sometime, Geralt. There’s plenty of room in the van for three.”

“Maybe sometime.” Geralt takes a long sip of ale and wonders if the White Gull is going to come out tonight, or if Lambert absconded with it all.

“But I was never in any danger,” Jaskier says. “Eskel didn’t let any of them get anywhere near me. Well, except for that one wolf, but that was just a fluke. Not terrifying at all.”

Eskel snorts. “If I remember correctly, you were on top of the van, screaming for help.”

“Yes, but in a courageous fashion.”

They begin bantering back and forth about the leshen hunt where Jaskier apparently nearly got eaten by wolves. A leshen hunt where Geralt was on the other side of the fucking Continent, probably sitting on the couch with Mousesack. Gods, if one of those wolves had gotten a lucky bite, or the crows had swooped down and Jaskier had fallen off the roof of the van…

Geralt excuses himself from the table. His stew is only half-eaten, but he’s lost his appetite.

He finds Lambert where he expected to find him,sitting at the top of the North Tower with a bottle of White Gull. To Geralt’s surprise, Mousesack is sitting in his lap.

“Your cat likes me,” Lambert says by way of greeting.

“Hm.” Geralt settles down in the chair next to him. There never used to be chairs in the tower— you either stood, perched on the wall, or sat on the ground. “He’s never been very smart.”

“Oh, fuck you.” Lambert takes another sip of White Gull. Judging from the way he’s slurring his words, he’s already had plenty. “I don’t want to fucking talk about it.”

“Talk about what?”

“This is why you’re my favorite brother. Eskel’s too fucking sensitive. If he were up here, he’d have me journaling about this shit.”

Without answering, Geralt takes the half-empty bottle of White Gull from his hand. Lambert offers no resistance.

His brother squints at him. “You shouldn’t drink too much of that, or your human liver is going to get pickled.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Geralt says and takes a long drink.

Lambert leans back and looks at the sky for a long moment, before bursting out with, “I thought he was dead!”

“He told Jaskier he thought that was for the best.”

“How?” Lambert snarls.

“Don’t know, you’d have to ask Aiden.”

“Like hell I’m talking to that prick.” Lambert begins to fidget with the Cat medallion around his neck. Geralt wonders how long his brother has been keeping it hidden on him. He wonders how none of them managed to notice it. He wonders what else they’ve failed to notice about the youngest Wolf.

“I punched him in the face,” Geralt tells Lambert.

Lambert snorts. “When?”

“When I figured out who he was.”

“Why?”

Geralt shrugs. “He let you think he was dead. He hurt you.”

Lambert makes a soft choked noise, but doesn’t reply. There’s not much else to say after that, so they sit and drink in silence. From far below, someone whoops with laughter. Geralt’s human ears can’t discern who the laughter belongs to.

***

“Drink it slow.” Eskel pours a frankly insulting amount of White Gull into a glass for Jaskier. With Lambert and Geralt off somewhere and Ciri upstairs in her room, the rest of them are gathered around the table in front of the hearth.

Jaskier peers into the glass, then frowns at his friend. “That’s not even half a shot!”

“Like I said, drink it slow.” Eskel pours himself a generous cup and passes the bottle to Coën. “Unless you want to end up passed out under the table.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened,” Vesemir says. “Do I need to remind you of the time I found you and Geralt sleeping in the stables?”

Eskel gets a look on his face that suggests if witchers could blush, he would be blushing. “We were young.”

“What’s young, eighty?” Jaskier asks him.

“About that,” Vesemir grumbles. “They all acted like dumbass teenagers well into their second centuries. Now they just act like dumbasses.”

“Don’t write that down,” Eskel says as Jaskier fishes his phone out of his pocket and opens his Notes app.

Jaskier makes a face at him. “I’m not going to blog about any of this. I’ll just turn it into a song.”

“If you’re going to start singing, I’ll need some White Gull too.” Yennefer drains her wine and holds out her glass to Eskel.

Jaskier laughs, which turns into a splutter when he takes a sip of the White Gull. It burns like the worst kind of vodka. When he’s able to breathe again, he manages to gasp, “What the fuck is in this?”

“You sure you don’t want more, Jask?” Eskel points to the bottle, it looks more like a threat than an offer.

“Gods, no.” Jaskier pours what’s left of his drink into Eskel’s cup. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“If we were, we’d come up with a better method than White Gull,” Yennefer points out. “Everyone here is more creative than that.”

Jaskier looks to Triss, who’s the only one not openly laughing at him. She smiles and pats his hand sympathetically. “What did you expect from alcohol distilled from witcher potions?”

“Distilled from _what?_ ”

That gets another round of laughter from the assembled witchers and sorceresses. Jaskier rolls his eyes and goes to get himself a beer. When he gets back, Aiden is waving around the bottle of White Gull and talking loudly.

“If you distill it with Black Blood—”

“Fuck, I don’t drink Black Blood unless I really have to.” Eskel looks caught somewhere between horrified and impressed.

“Trust me, when it’s mixed in, you don’t even taste it. And you’ll see colors you didn’t even know existed.”

“I’ll stick to beer, thanks.” Jaskier plops down next to Eskel.

“Oh, it would kill you,” Aiden says. “You wouldn’t even finish taking your first sip.”

“Cheers.” Jaskier toasts him with his beer.

“You should say something to Lambert.” Eskel reaches around Jaskier to take the bottle from Aiden. “He’s the White Gull expert here.”

The smile falls off Aiden's face abruptly. “I’ll do that.”

Eskel grimaces, seeming to realize what he said.

To smooth over the moment, Jaskier leans forward and asks, “So, do you still get the black eyes when you drink distilled Black Blood, Aiden?”

They sit and talk for a long time, with the witchers swapping stories and Jaskier hanging onto every word. After a while, Coën, Vesemir, and Eskel seem to forget that they don’t trust Aiden, or at least they make an attempt to look like they’re letting their guard down. After Yennefer and Triss head up to bed and the witchers start a drunken game of Gwent, Jaskier calls it a night. Geralt still hasn’t returned from wherever he slipped off to during dinner and Jaskier is starting to worry that something is wrong.

He’s almost to his room when he sees a familiar figure stumbling towards him from the other end of the hallway. It’s Geralt, leaning against the wall to support himself as he comes towards Jaskier. When he catches sight of Jaskier, a wide smile spreads over his face and he throws his arms around Jaskier.

“I was just coming to look for you.” Geralt’s words are slurred.

“You’re drunk.” Jaskier can smell the White Gull on Geralt. He’s never seen Geralt drunk, he realizes, not in nearly three years of knowing each other. When Geralt was a witcher, it would have taken more alcohol than they ever kept in the house to get him intoxicated. And even as a human, Geralt has never shown any interest in drinking to excess.

But from the way Geralt leans against Jaskier, boneless, it’s very clear that he’s hammered.

“Hm, no I’m not,” Geralt mumbles sleepily.

“That sounds like something a drunk person would say.” Jaskier loops an arm around his boyfriend’s waist. “How much White Gull did you drink?”

“Not a lot.”

“How much is not a lot?”

“We only finished one bottle. Think Lambert had most of it.”

Thinking of how quickly one sip went to his head, Jaskier grimaces. “Gods, how did you get down the stairs without breaking your neck?”

“Lambert carried me.” Geralt smiles and it’s a joyful, open smile that Jaskier rarely sees on his face these days. It does funny things to Jaskier’s heart. “But he told me I had to make it the rest of the way by myself.”

“Brotherly of him.” Jaskier bumps the door to their bedroom open with his hip and leads him over to the bed.

“Hm.” There’s a different tone to Geralt’s voice now. He nuzzles at Jaskier’s neck in a way that reminds Jaskier vividly that it’s been… well, Jaskier doesn’t actually want to think about how long it’s been since he and Geralt last had sex, because it will just depress him.

“Geralt,” Jaskier says softly. “You’re drunk.”

“And you smell good.”

“I’ll smell even better tomorrow, after you’ve sobered up.”

“You always smell good.” Geralt nips at his earlobe. “But I miss being able to _really_ smell you.”

“You should have said something earlier. I can go a couple of days without showering, see if you change your tune.”

Geralt chuckles and without warning, flops back on the bed, pulling Jaskier with him. Jaskier lands on top of him, causing them both to let out little _oomphs._

“I love you.” Geralt gazes up at Jaskier with soft brown eyes and Jaskier feels a familiar shiver of want in his gut. Sometimes, he misses gold eyes, but it’s impossible to regret their loss when Geralt is looking at him like this.

Jaskier brushes Geralt’s hair out of his face. “I love you too. I love you so, so much.”

Geralt leans his cheek against Jaskier’s hand and closes his eyes. “I’m going to miss you.”

Jaskier frowns down at him. “Why would you miss me, Geralt? I’m not going anywhere.”

His only answer is a snore.

***

In some ways, being at Kaer Morhen is no different than it was decades ago. Geralt gets up at dawn, helps with whatever chores need to be done around the keep, spends his afternoons down in the training yard with his brothers, and stays up late after dinner most nights, playing Gwent and drinking White Gull— though never as much as he drank that first night.

In other ways, it’s like a completely different keep. For one, there aren’t as many chores that need to be done now that the keep has been renovated. There’s some gardening and the occasional leak to take care of, but there are no longer walls in danger of collapsing on people. Geralt finds himself wandering the woods around the keep more often than he used to. Most of the really dangerous creatures that lived in the area are long-gone; it’s no longer as perilous of a hike, though Geralt still brings a knife.

For another, the keep is busy for the first time in years. Ciri is always running around, either being trained in magic by Yennefer and Triss or in combat by Eskel, Lambert, Coën, and Vesemir— and sometimes even Aiden. Jaskier spends his days mostly holed up in the study, either working on his blog or his book.

Geralt just… walks. And watches training sometimes. And tries to read, though his focus isn’t what it used to be. He helps out Vesemir in the kitchens, Lambert in the distillery, and Eskel in the gardens. He tries to find a place where he fits in here.

Vesemir keeps trying to get him to join in with the witchers for afternoon sparring. “It’s good for you to stay in practice,” he tells Geralt on their third day in Kaer Morhen. “You’ll never know when you’ll need those skills.”

Geralt thinks of his swords, sitting in his bedroom closet back in Posada. He can lift them with effort, but he can’t swing them effectively anymore. “Didn’t even bring my swords.”

“We do still have an armory, Geralt. I’m sure something there will—”

“I don’t want any of you to have to hold back to spar with me. I’m fine. I can watch.”

Something like pity flickers across the old witcher’s face. Geralt likes Vesemir, but at that moment, he wants to punch him. He would probably break his hand if he tried. “We spar with Ciri and Jaskier, Geralt. We’ve all sparred with humans before. You won’t hold us back.”

“I’m fine,” Geralt says again and Vesemir lets the subject drop for the day, though he invites Geralt to spar with them several more times over the next two weeks.

After seventy-four years away, Geralt feels like a stranger here. And maybe that’s his own fault. Maybe he should have visited more often. Maybe he should have made an effort to see his brothers and Vesemir. He feels adrift in the keep, even as Jaskier seems to blossom. Whether he’s working in the library, spending time with Ciri, or playing Gwent— a game he derided as an “old people game” not long ago— Jaskier blends in effortlessly with the other residents of Kaer Morhen. He’s happy here.

Two weeks after their arrival at Kaer Morhen, Geralt is sitting on the edge of the training yard, watching Eskel spar with Ciri while Vesemir and Coën spar. Aiden and Lambert sit on either side of him, each positioned on opposite ends of the wall. Watching Ciri hold her own against Eskel leaves a swell of pride in Geralt’s chest. She’s come a long way from when Geralt was training her over two years ago. Back then, she was enthusiastic, but unsure. Now, she rolls to avoid a hit from Eskel that would have taken most fully-trained witchers off guard. Between the magic she’s learning from Yennefer and Triss and the combat training, Ciri is going to grow into a formidable fighter.

Jaskier comes striding through the keep’s front doors with a bounce in his step. “Ciri, I’m supposed to tell you that you were due inside for lessons with Yennefer ten minutes ago. Oddly enough, she never seems to threaten to turn you into anything slimy.”

Ciri shrugs and smiles. “That’s because I never annoy her.”

“Oh, I find that hard to believe.” Jaskier comes over to Geralt to drop a kiss on his cheek.

Ciri sticks her tongue out at Jaskier and jogs inside to meet Yennefer.

Eskel nods to the sword she abandoned. “You want to go, Jask?”

“Must I? I’m still sore from yesterday.”

“Only way to fix that is to get stronger.” It’s something that Geralt has said to Jaskier many times; it’s strange to hear it coming out of Eskel’s mouth.

Jaskier grumbles, like he always does when forced to undergo physical labor, kisses Geralt again and goes to pick up the sword. Geralt sits up a bit straighter. He knows that Jaskier has sparred with the others a few times, but this is the first time he’s witnessing it. It’s been almost a year since Geralt ceased their regular morning training, so he’s not sure what to expect.

What he’s not expecting is for Jaskier and Eskel to effortlessly fall into step together in a way that makes it clear that they spar often enough that they both know how the other fights. And Jaskier has improved in the last year. He’s more confident holding a sword and quicker on his feet. He couldn’t have just been practicing when he goes on hunts with Eskel; he must be training on his own too. 

As he watches them spar, Geralt feels something dark and unpleasant curdle in his belly. It’s not jealousy, exactly. He knows that Eskel is no threat to his relationship; Eskel seems to view Jaskier as a younger brother. Maybe it’s shame that Eskel took the time to teach Jaskier how to defend himself, when Geralt has barely been able to look at his swords for the past year.

“You’re getting rusty,” Eskel says when Jaskier nearly lands a hit on him, in a tone that suggests this is an inside joke they’ve shared many times before.

Jaskier laughs that open, carefree laugh of his and Geralt aches. He feels like a dark cloud lingering on the edges of the others’ fun. He climbs to his feet and walks away. No one seems to notice him go.

***

Being at Kaer Morhen is an absolute delight.

After two weeks spent perusing the keep’s library, Jaskier has learned enough about witchers to fill an entire book, maybe two. Vesemir is another endless source of knowledge; he always seems happy to spend an afternoon talking about witcher history with Jaskier. There’s a thousand years of history here and Jaskier wants to learn _all_ of it.

Jaskier falls into an easy rhythm in the keep. In the mornings, he helps the others with chores. In the afternoons, he either works in the library, hangs out with Yennefer and Triss while they give Ciri lessons, or goes outside to watch sparring, occasionally taking part when Coën or Eskel offer to spar with him. He’d never tell Geralt as much, but he likes swordplay a hell of a lot more when it’s not at the crack of dawn. In fact, it’s become one of his favorite parts of the day.

Jaskier is very aware of Geralt watching him as he spars with Eskel. These days, he rarely can tell what his boyfriend is thinking. Geralt seems to be fitting into life at the keep well enough— he helps with the chores like everybody else, takes his meals at the same time, and seems cheerful enough while playing Gwent. But Jaskier thought that Geralt would be less withdrawn here, surrounded by the people who have known him his whole life. Instead, he’s become even quieter.

Not that he would ever admit to Jaskier than anything is wrong.

“You’re getting rusty,” Eskel says teasingly.

Jaskier laughs and rolls his eyes. “You said that yesterday.”

“Still true.”

Jaskier doesn’t spar to win. There’s no winning against a witcher, especially when he can’t use his tried-and-true method of kissing his opponent to distract him, a tactic that always worked wonders with Geralt. Still, despite all his complaining, he enjoys it, especially now that he’s improving.

He glances over to see if Geralt is still watching— if maybe he’s admiring how skilled Jaskier has become with a sword— but Geralt isn’t sitting on the wall anymore. When Jaskier looks around, he sees Geralt striding into the woods, shoulders hunched.

Eskel follows his line of sight. “I don’t think being back here is easy for him.”

Jaskier swallows back the lump in his throat. “I thought being here with all of you would make things better.”

“Kaer Morhen wasn’t always like this. It wasn’t always a home. We made it that way, after…” Eskel gestures towards where half of the keep once stood. “It holds a lot of bad memories for all of us. The last time Geralt was a human here he was a child who knew he had a seven in ten chance of dying in the Trials.”

The outline of Geralt’s back is barely visible through the trees. Jaskier says his goodbyes to Eskel and hurries after him.

***

One of the few things Geralt enjoys about being human is that the world is quieter. He can actually enjoy the silence as he walks through the woods. When he was a witcher, he would have known exactly how many woodland creatures were in the area and how quickly their hearts were beating. He would still be able to hear the crash of swords back at the keep. Now, he can only hear the chirping of birds and the faint burbling of the creek. It’s pleasant. Soothing.

“Geralt!” Jaskier’s voice. Geralt turns to see his boyfriend jogging towards him. His cheeks are pink from a mixture of the crisp mountain air and the exertion from sparring. He looks adorable.

“Sorry to intrude.” Jaskier presses a kiss to the tip of Geralt’s nose. “I thought you might want some company.”

“You’re not intruding,” Geralt says.

Jaskier takes Geralt’s hands in his. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Can I at least walk with you?”

“I’d like that,” Geralt says.

Jaskier is unusually silent as they walk, only having one minor conniption over a particularly fat squirrel. Geralt knows that it’s a struggle for Jaskier to be so quiet for so long, but he appreciates the effort. They walk peaceably side by side, fingers threaded together. When Jaskier asks, “What’s that?” it takes Geralt a moment to realize what Jaskier is talking about.

They’ve come to the remains of the Killer, the old obstacle course that the witcher trainees had to run every morning. It’s fallen into disrepair after centuries of use and now looks like nothing more than an old heap of timber and metal. But Geralt can see the three pendulums hanging in a row and feels a centuries-old shiver of unease.

“It’s the Killer,” he says softly. “We used to run it every morning.”

Jaskier grimaces. “Looks like the gym class from hell.”

“Hm. We used to lose at least one trainee a year to it.”

“Lose?” Jaskier asks, looking puzzled, and then realization dawns on his face. “Oh, gods.”

Geralt points to the pendulum. “They would start you out with one pendulum. That was easy. Then the second. But when they added the third, that’s when we usually lost someone. I broke both legs running it one year. Was laid up for months. I was lucky.”

Jaskier slips his arms through Geralt’s and squeezes. “We could burn it.”

“No, I think Vesemir likes having it here. It’s a reminder that if somehow, we ever do regain the ability to make more witchers, we’ll have to do things differently. Sometimes, I wonder if we would have been so careless with our trainees if we knew about the sieges that were coming. Maybe our school would have survived if there had been more of us.”

They are quiet for a while, watching the Killer. Geralt is lost in his thoughts until Jaskier squeezes his arm and says, “Are you happy here?”

Geralt is surprised by the question. “Does it matter? We have nowhere else to go.”

“Yes, Geralt,” Jaskier says quietly. “It matters to me if you’re happy.”

Geralt shrugs. “It’s a place like any other. And the Eternal Fire can’t reach us here.”

“I don’t think this place is like any other. And if you’re miserable…”

“Then what? We go back to Posada and get shot in our bed?” Geralt’s voice comes out harder than he intends and he immediately regrets it.

“I know this last year has been hard for you. I’m worried that being here will make it worse.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t always have to be fine.”

“But I am.”

Jaskier heaves a sigh. “Of course you are, Geralt. Come on, we should head back.”

Geralt knows he’s said something wrong, but he can’t figure out what. The thing is, it really doesn’t matter if he’s fine. Geralt doesn’t have to be fine. He may not like being back in Kaer Morhen. Every moment here may remind him of his inadequacy, of his weakness. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, because staying here means living. And Geralt refuses to sacrifice his life— and more importantly, Jaskier’s life— just because of some sad memories.

He opens his mouth to tell Jaskier all this— he doesn’t know how, but it seems important that Jaskier understands— when he hears the flapping of enormous wings above him. He reacts without thinking, shoving Jaskier aside just as a wyvern swoops down on them.

***

Lambert is not looking in Aiden’s direction. He’s spent most of the last two weeks not looking in Aiden’s direction. He doesn’t look when Aiden spars with the others— showing off the ridiculous, acrobatic shit that’s central to the Cats’ fighting style. He doesn’t look when Aiden is relaxing at the table, grinning over a cup of White Gull. He doesn’t look at the indulgent smile Aiden wears when he teaches Ciri knife tricks or tells Jaskier stories about the Cat school.

He’s so focused on not looking that he doesn’t realize Geralt is gone until Jaskier and Eskel notice. Only then is he acutely aware that there’s no buffer between him and Aiden. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Aiden flipping that stupid knife in the air, a nervous habit he hasn’t lost. Aiden wasnever able to sit still; Lambert tried to teach him how to meditate once and it was like trying to teach a fucking zeugl how to waltz.

“Gonna go check the traps,” Lambert mutters to Eskel after Jaskier goes after Geralt.

Eskel gives him a knowing look; he knows as well as Lambert that it’s hours before they normally check to see if they snared anything for dinner. “Have fun.”

Lambert heads in the opposite direction of Jaskier, towards where they keep the traps behind the keep. Unsurprisingly, they haven’t caught any game yet. Maybe he should go fishing, he decides. They haven’t had fish for dinner in a long time. He can take Ciri when she’s done with her lessons; she loves learning how the different bombs work.

“Lam.”

Lambert used to love the way Aiden says his name. He’s used to it being shouted, groaned in exasperation, or accompanied by a sneer. Only Aiden ever said his name like it was something precious to him.

Not anymore.

Lambert doesn’t turn as Aiden’s footfalls approach softly behind him. “Not in the mood to deal with dead men today, so you should fuck off back to the keep.”

Aiden comes up behind Lambert, standing so close that Lambert can feel the heat of his body. He’s not touching Lambert; he knows better than that. “We should talk.”

Lambert almost laughs at that, because he’s spent three hundred years talking to Aiden, pretending that Aiden was next to him when he was lying bleeding on the ground after a bad fight or late at night when he was setting up camp alone. He’s said everything he needs to say. And it’s not like he ever thought the Cat could hear him, but it was a comforting fantasy he spun for himself.

“I have nothing to say,” Lambert says.

“Then let me talk. I can’t stay here any longer and have you look right through me when we’re in the same room.”

“Then leave.”

“Is that really what you want?” A wounded note enters Aiden’s voice.

No, it’s not. The Eternal Fire are vicious fuckers, have been for centuries. Lambert doesn’t want to see Aiden at their mercy, any more than he would want them to get their hands on Geralt or Jaskier. He kneels down and busies himself with resetting a snare. The snare is perfectly fine, but it keeps his hands busy. “Say what you need to say, then fuck off.”

“I hated you thinking I was dead.”

Lambert snorts. “Sure as fuck didn’t stop you from letting me think that.”

Aiden lets out a deep breath. “It was for—”

“If you say it was for the best, I’m going to jam this snare down your fucking throat.”

Aiden lets out a bark of surprised laughter. “After Karadin left me for dead, I was in a bad place for a long time. Couldn’t see out of one eye. Didn’t know who I was half the time. I was dangerous. I’m still surprised I didn’t accidentally kill any of the dryads who were taking care of me.”

Lambert barely suppresses a shudder. He knows what Aiden means by “a bad place.” He’s seen the things Cat school mutations can do when they go wrong. “I’m not some fragile maiden that needed to be protected from you.”

“I was out of my mind, Lam. And by the time I came back to myself, it had been years. The Cat school was all gone. And I looked at my school’s legacy and all I saw was betrayal and innocent blood spilled. So I decided that it was time for the Cat school to die.”

“And what about me?” Lambert growls.

Aiden blinks. “To be honest, I didn’t realize how much it would hurt you.”

“You didn’t _realize_?”

“You made it pretty damn clear that I was nothing but a casual fuck.”

Lambert opens his mouth, then closes it. “I didn’t—”

Aiden lowers his voice, mimicking Lambert. “‘This won’t happen again, Cat.’ ‘Don’t go getting used to this, Cat.’ ‘Time for you to go, Cat.’”

Lambert regains his power of speech. “Why did you think I went after Karadin? Because I didn’t care?”

“Guilt? Righteous indignation over the murder of a fellow witcher? I didn’t know.” Aiden shrugs. “By the time I got some inkling of how badly my death had fucked you up, it had been decades and it felt like revealing myself would just hurt you more.”

“You’ve been keeping tabs on me?”

“Yes,” Aiden says.

Lambert doesn’t know how he feels about that, so he defaults to his usual— anger. “It would have been easier to keep tabs on me if you hadn’t let me think you were fucking dead.”

Aiden steps closer. “What do you want from me, Lambert?”

“I don’t want shit from you.”

“I can make this better. You just need to tell me how.”

“I’ll tell you how, you—” Lambert breaks off when he hears a yell from the woods. He knows that yell.

Aiden goes still. “Was that—”

“Geralt.” Lambert turns and starts to run in the direction of his brother’s shouts.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise, this will be the only cliffhanger this in this fic! Most likely.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A close call with a wyvern leaves Geralt shaken and causes tension between him and Jaskier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this is being posted later in the day than usual, but after the week this has been, it's honestly a miracle that this chapter is being posted today at all. I am running low on mental energy, so have not edited this chapter as thoroughly as I normally would. Apologies if there are any major typos.
> 
> Also, you may notice that this fic is now projected to be four chapters instead of five. Chapter Five was originally going to be a short, fluffy epilogue that I've just decided to pin onto the end of Chapter Four for simplicity's sake. I promise, you're still getting the same amount of words.
> 
> As always, thank you to dls for betaing!

Jaskier hasn’t seen a wyvern since the two that nearly killed him on the night he met Geralt. As he looks up to see the wyvern dropping out of the sky towards them, clawed feet outstretched to snatch them up, that’s the first thing he remembers— being pinned down, helpless and certain his head was about to be ripped off. He’s reaching for the knife in his belt when Geralt shoves him aside. Jaskier hits the ground as the wyvern snatches Geralt up in its claws.

Jaskier opens his mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. For an instant, Geralt is airborne, legs thrashing as the wyvern carries him upwards. Then Geralt casts Igni. With a shriek, the wyvern drops him. Geralt lands on his back and Jaskier scrambles to him.

“Geralt!” Jaskier’s hands hover over him, not sure where to check for wounds first.

“I’m fine.” Geralt’s voice comes out a wheeze as he sits up. “Hide. Once I have it distracted, go back to the keep.”

“Geralt, I’m not going to—”

“Go!”

Geralt climbs to his feet, planting himself between Jaskier and the wyvern as the creature circles in the air above them and dives for them again. Jaskier scrambles out of the way as the wyvern slams into Geralt, knocking him to the ground. Jaskier can see that Geralt’s arms are pinned beneath the creature’s weight, stopping him from casting any signs or using his knife to defend himself.

Geralt’s eyes meet Jaskier’s, filled with fear. Geralt hardly ever lets it show when he’s scared. “Jask, go!” he shouts again.

Like hell is Jaskier leaving the man he loves to be ripped apart. With a shout, he takes a running jump and leaps onto the wyvern’s back. It unfurls its wings, like it's about to take flight, and Jaskier drives his knife through one of the wings, severing the tendon. The wyvern shrieks and bucks, throwing Jaskier to the ground. He hears Geralt shout his name as his head hits the ground hard enough that he sees stars.

“Jaskier!” Geralt yells again and Jaskier looks up in time to see the wyvern’s spiked tail coming right at him. With a curse, Jaskier rolls to avoid it. The wyvern whirls on Jaskier, momentarily forgetting about its prey, and Geralt takes advantage of its distraction to bury his hunting knife into its chest.

The wyvern thrashes, shrieking in agony. Its tail whips through the air towards Jaskier, who isn’t quick enough to avoid it this time. The tail slams into Jaskiers side and he feels the spikes tear through his abdomen. The venom _burns_ worse than the wound itself. He screams and curls into himself, holding his stomach to try to stop the blood, but there’s too much of it and it’s pouring out of him.

Jaskier has been hurt on hunts before. He’s been clawed by a werewolf, bitten by a katakan, gotten a sprained wrist when Geralt pushed him out of the way of a basilisk, and has nearly been drowned several times. But he’s never seen this much of his own blood before. He’s fairly certain that if he takes his hands away from the wound, he’ll be able to see his own insides.

“Jaskier!” Geralt is pinned beneath the wyvern’s corpse, struggling fruitlessly to push it off of him.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Jaskier tries to say, but no sound comes out. He tastes blood in his mouth.

“It’s okay, Jask.” Geralt’s voice is choked. Jaskier can see in his eyes that it’s not okay. “We’ll get you to Triss and you’ll be fine. Just please, stay awake.”

There are dark spots in Jaskier’s vision.

“Stay awake!” Geralt shouts, just as something above them shrieks.

Jaskier looks up to see another wyvern. Not a pup, but a full-grown wyvern, like the one Geralt just killed. And it’s coming straight for Jaskier.

The last thing Jaskier thinks before unconsciousness claims him is, _Wyverns don’t travel in packs._

***

Geralt can only shout Jaskier’s name as Jaskier goes limp, unconscious. Geralt can see Jaskier’s blood, staining grass and rocks, and it’s the worst thing Geralt has ever seen. He’s seen Jaskier hurt before. He’s seen Jaskier bleed. But he was always able to do something, not just lie here and watch. The dead wyvern is a crushing weight on top of him, its bitter-smelling ichor drenching him, and he can’t fucking get it off him.

The second wyvern is heading straight for Jaskier’s prone form and Geralt tries to shout at it, to distract it from Jaskier, but the wyvern on top of him is slowly crushing the air from his lungs and he can’t draw enough breath to yell anymore. Jaskier doesn’t move. Geralt can’t even tell if he’s breathing. He’s facedown on the ground, oblivious to the monster coming straight at him. Maybe that’s a mercy, but it doesn’t feel like one right now.

Maybe if Jaskier was awake, he would be able to find some poetry in the fact that their story began with a wyvern and is about to end with one, but Geralt isn’t the poet here and all he feels is terror.

The wyvern is almost on Jaskier when there’s a war cry. Geralt looks up in time to see Aiden leap into the air, a knife in each hand, and slam into the wyvern. Witcher and wyvern both tumble to the ground, the wyvern shrieking. The Cat’s fighting style is so different from what the Wolves are taught and Jaskier should be seeing this. He would be fascinated. But he’s still not moving and Geralt can’t even focus on the fight between Aiden and the wyvern. He can’t focus on anything but watching Jaskier for any signs of life. He would give anything to be able to hear Jaskier’s heartbeat right now.

Lambert comes racing out of the trees. When he sees Jaskier lying there, he curses colorfully and drops to his knees next to the unconscious man. Gently, Lambert turns Jaskier over and presses his hands to Jaskier’s wounds. Jaskier’s head lolls, but he doesn’t wake. There’s a splatter of blood on his cheek and his lips are bloody. It’s all wrong to see him so still and silent. Even in sleep, he usually snores or mumbles to himself or kicks Geralt’s shins.

“Lambert,” Geralt croaks.

Lambert doesn’t look up from trying to staunch the flow of Jaskier’s blood. “He’s alive.”

Geralt closes his eyes.

The wyvern lets out one last shriek and Aiden comes striding over, drenched in blood and ichor. He hauls the first wyvern’s corpse off of Geralt, who sucks in deep lungfuls of air.

“Go get Merigold,” Lambert tells Aiden, who nods and takes off towards the keep. To Geralt, Lambert adds, "You alright, Wolf?"

Geralt can only groan in response. Breathing hurts, he realizes now that the adrenaline is wearing off. Everything hurts, actually. He probably has several broken ribs, maybe even a punctured lung. Minor injuries, compared to the bloody wounds on Jaskier’s stomach, but still painful. He tries to sit up, but agony washes over him and he sinks back to the ground.

“Come on, talk to me.” Lambert glances over at Geralt, expression tight with worry.

“I’m fine,” Geralt manages to croak. “Will he…”

“It’s not good, but nothing Merigold won’t be able to fix.”

“You just saying that?”

“You ever known me to say anything just to be reassuring?”

A portal opens and Yennefer and Triss step through, followed by Coën, Aiden, and Eskel. Triss immediately drops to her knees next to Jaskier, heedless of the blood pooled around him, and presses her hands to his wounds. Lambert backs away to give her space. He’s completely drenched in Jaskier’s blood.

“Was it the wyvern’s tail that did this?” Triss asks Geralt.

“I don’t know,” Geralt wheezes. He didn’t see Jaskier get hurt. He didn’t smell the blood or hear the cry. Fuck, he was useless.

“I can smell the venom,” Lambert says. “It was the tail.”

Fuck. A fresh wave of fear surges through Geralt. Wyvern venom is enough to kill a witcher in large enough quantities.

Yennefer comes towards him and Geralt shakes his head. “Help Jaskier,” he says, because all of Triss and Yennefer’s combined effort needs to go into saving Jaskier.

“Don’t be a martyr, Geralt,” she snaps. “You need healing.”

“Jaskier.” Geralt tries to sit up, because he needs to get to the man he loves. If they aren’t going to survive this, he needs to look at Jaskier one last time. Touch him. Tell him he loves him.

“You’re going to hurt yourself.” Yennefer puts her hand on Geralt’s forehead. He doesn’t even realize what she’s doing before he slides into the mindlessness of sleep.

***

Lambert kicks at the dead wyvern that was pinning Geralt down only moments before. It was an ugly fucker— big and mean-looking, but scrawny. There are punctures in its wings and a neat stab wound right under its armpit, where it’s most vulnerable.

“Both males,” Aiden says behind him and Lambert jumps. The Cat is the only person in the world who can sneak up on Lambert. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

Lambert turns to scowl at him. “I thought you were going back to the keep with the others.” Aiden was supposed to have left with Coën, Eskel, Yennefer and Triss to bring Jaskier and Geralt back to the keep for healing.

“They had it well in hand,” Aiden says. “Anyway, there could be another wyvern around.”

“I can handle a fucking wyvern.” But Lambert still looks up, checking the sky. “Anyway, wyverns are normally solitary.”

“That’s what I’m saying. They’re both adult male wyverns. This wasn’t a mother and pup. These wyverns couldn’t be in the same area without there being a territory dispute. I think we would have noticed one of those. Wyvern territory disputes are loud.”

“I haven’t seen a wyvern up here in centuries,” Lambert says. “We cleared them all out. We cleared most of the monsters on this mountain out, and the ones that are still around give the keep a wide berth.”

“These ones didn’t get the memo.” Aiden kneels down besides the corpse.

“You think they were after the thirty thousand crowns for Geralt and Jaskier's heads?” Lambert points at the wyvern. “This one sure needs the dental work.”

Aiden returns his smirk and for a moment, Lambert forgets that he’s furious at the Cat. Then reality comes slamming back to Lambert and he looks away, clearing his throat. “Vesemir was up here by himself for years. Makes sense that he might have missed something.”

“Or someone released them up here.”

“Oh come on, that’s—” Lambert looks down and sees Aiden pointing to the soft part of the wyvern’s belly, right next to the stab wound. Lambert kneels down next to Aiden and sees the small, perfectly round puncture mark Aiden is indicating.

“Someone injected it with something,” he says. “Fuck.”

Aiden nods. “Probably a tranquilizer.”

“That doesn’t make any damn sense. How the hell would someone get a sedated wyvern up the mountain? Never mind two. You can’t get a truck up here.”

“They must have had a mage.”

Lambert can still smell Jaskier’s blood mingled with the wyvern’s ichor. “Someone must know that you, Geralt, and Jaskier are here.”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“Stupid plan,” Lambert says. “There’s no guarantee that the wyverns were going to attack any of us. They could have just ended up killing each other, or killing their handler.”

“Unless Geralt was the target and they knew that he takes walks nearly every day.”

“Then why not just shoot him, or stab him, or turn him into a rock?” Annoyance surges through him. This shit is the reason he’s never trusted mages. Always making things way more complicated than they need to be.

“Didn’t Jaskier and Geralt meet because Jaskier got attacked by a wyvern?”

“So it was supposed to be symbolic? Fuck that.” Lambert stands up and kicks the wyvern again, for good measure.

“But it nearly worked,” Aiden says. “If we had been a couple of seconds later, Jaskier would have died.”

That sobers Lambert. Geralt’s boyfriend is growing on him, despite his general… Jaskier-ness, and Lambert wouldn’t want to see him hurt. And not just because of what it would do to Geralt.

“And whoever did this will probably try again,” Aiden says grimly.

“Good,” Lambert says. “I’m looking forward to meeting them.”

***

When Jaskier blinks awake, his mouth dry and his head aching, he finds himself looking up into Yennefer’s unimpressed face.

“You lived,” she says, playing at nonchalance, though he can see the relief in her eyes.

Jaskier groans and looks down at himself. He has a vague memory of pain and a lot of blood, but there’s only two long, thin scars cutting across his chest. They’re a nice addition to the pinprick scars on Jaskier’s sides from a wyvern and the scar on his hip from a werewolf’s claws.

“I imagine I have you to thank for that,” he says hoarsely.

“Triss, actually. I was all in favor of letting the man who had the fool idea to wrestle a wyvern get what he deserved.”

“I was being heroic.” Jaskier looks around, but there’s no one else in the room. “Geralt?”

“I kicked him out after I finished healing him,” Yennefer says. “He was hovering.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, no thanks to his best efforts. He has several broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a dislocated hip, but he’ll be good as new after a couple of days of rest.”

Jaskier lets out a long, relieved breath. “Thank fuck,” he says.

“You two got lucky.” Yennefer crosses her arms over her chest. “I didn’t go through all that trouble of saving your life last year just to have you let yourself get eaten by a wyvern.”

“Aw, Yenn.” Jaskier bats his eyelashes at her. “You really do care.”

“I could kill you with a thought.”

“And you never let me forget it.” Jaskier stretches, wincing as his sore body protests. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” she says softly, then clears her throat. “But like I said—”

“Yes, it was all Triss. You don’t care if I live or die. You really remind me of Geralt sometimes.”

“You had quite the blow to your head earlier, so I’ll let that slide.”

When she lets Jaskier out of the infirmary, he sees that it’s dark outside. His stomach is growling something fierce, but he needs to see Geralt. The last memory he has of his boyfriend is Geralt pinned under a wyvern, watching in horror as a second wyvern swooped towards Jaskier. The memory makes Jaskier shudder. He remembers all too vividly what it feels like to be pinned under a wyvern and the thought of Geralt being trapped like that, terrified and helpless, is horrifying.

He pushes open the bedroom door and finds Geralt pacing back and forth across the tiny room. “Aren’t you supposed to be resting?” Jaskier asks.

When Geralt turns, his expression melts into one of heartbreaking relief. “Jaskier,” he says hoarsely.

Jaskier rushes into his arms. “You’re okay,” he murmurs into Geralt’s shoulder. “We’re both okay. Fuck, Geralt, that was way too close.”

Geralt runs a hand over his stomach and Jaskier knows he’s checking for wounds.

“I’m fine.” Jaskier presses kisses across Geralt’s neck and his jaw and his shoulder. “I swear, I’m fine.”

“I couldn’t get to you,” Geralt says in a wounded voice. “I was just lying there and I couldn’t get to you.”

“Love, there was a wyvern on top of you. It wasn’t your fault. And the others got to us, so it was fine.” Jaskier looks around and frowns when he sees a packed suitcase at the bottom of the bed. “Geralt, why are you packed?”

Geralt lets go of Jaskier and steps back. “Someone sent the wyverns.”

Jaskier blinks at him. “ _How?_ ”

“Lambert thinks someone must have sedated them and then dropped them off on the mountain. Probably a mage.”

“So someone knows we’re here.” Jaskier’s stomach drops. He’s felt so safe here for these past couple of weeks, like nothing can touch him within these walls.

Geralt nods, mouth pressed into a thin line.

“So we’re leaving?”

“I’m leaving,” Geralt says.

“Excuse me?”

“Whoever sent those wyverns knew I take walks every day,” Geralt says. “They were sent after me. You were just collateral.”

“There’s a price on my head too!”

“Only five thousand crowns. I’m the more valuable target. If I leave, they’ll come after me and leave you alone. That’s just good business.”

“And where are you going to go?” Jaskier demands.

“Don’t know.” Geralt shrugs. “I’ll figure something out.”

“How are you going to get there?”

“Yennefer will portal me.”

“Have you asked Yenn yet?”

Doubt momentarily flickers across Geralt’s face. “No.”

“So you think she’s going to portal you to almost-certain death? Do you know Yennefer at all?”

“I can’t stay here, Jaskier,” Geralt snaps. “You could have died.”

“So the solution is to go off somewhere with no protection at all? And probably die yourself? How the fuck does that make any sense?”

“Because this is the only way I can protect you!” Geralt shouts.

Jaskier’s jaw clenches. Geralt never shouts at him, unless he’s shouting at him to get out of the way of a monster. “Protecting me doesn’t mean anything if you’re not safe too.”

“Jaskier.” Geralt sounds almost pleading. “I can barely pick up my own fucking swords anymore. I was useless earlier. You could have died and I would have just had to watch. This is the best thing I can do for you.”

“I thought we were past this,” Jaskier says. The ‘I must protect you at all costs’ bullshit. We’re in this together, Geralt. You don’t get to leave without me.”

“You’re safer here. The others can protect you. Eskel will keep you safe.” Jaskier isn’t expecting the bitter twist of Geralt’s mouth when he says his brother’s name.

Jaskier crosses his arms over his chest. “Please tell me you’re not jealous of the time I spend with Eskel. Because one, you told me you were alright with me traveling with him. Two, I love you. Three, Eskel has been in love with a succubus for like four hundred years now, so I don’t think he’s on the market even if I did want an interchangeable witcher boyfriend.”

“I’m not jealous of Eskel,” Geralt snaps. “I can’t keep us safe from the Eternal Fire. I can’t keep us safe from a wyvern. Fuck, Mousesack could go rabid and I probably wouldn’t be able to protect us from him.”

“None of that matters to me.”

“But it matters to me!” Geralt turns his back to Jaskier. “Sometimes, I think you would be better off without me.”

An icy feeling lodges in Jaskier’s chest. “Don’t say that.”

“You keep getting hurt. You keep nearly getting killed. And it’s only because you’re near me. You wouldn’t be on the Eternal Fire’s radar if you weren’t my lover. None of this would have happened if I had just—” Geralt breaks off. “I’m going to leave and you’ll be safe. It’s the best way.”

“Bullshit. You’re only doing this because you feel guilty and you’re trying to punish yourself.” Jaskier steps forward and rests a hand on Geralt’s back. “If you leave, I leave.”

“I’m not taking you with me.”

“Then I’ll walk down the mountain by myself. I’m not going to stay here safe in a fortress while you’re alone out there. We stay here together or we leave together. Your choice.”

“Jaskier—”

“Your choice, Geralt.” Jaskier swallows around the tightness in his throat. “If you want to leave, go ahead. Just know I’m coming with you. Decide I’m better off without you if you want. Break up with me if you want. I’m still coming with you. I’m not going to let you go alone. You should know me better than that at this point.”

Geralt doesn’t say anything.

“So, what’s your choice, Geralt? Do we stay or do we go?”

Geralt doesn’t answer. Instead, he turns and brushes past Jaskier, leaving the room without a word. He leaves his suitcase behind.

***

It would be better, Geralt thinks, if Jaskier gave him the cold shoulder. But Jaskier doesn’t do cold shoulders or uncomfortable silences. Instead, he is perfectly pleasant to Geralt in the days following their argument. Whenever they’re sitting across from each other at mealtimes, he smiles and asks Geralt to pass the salt and makes comments about the weather. But while he jokes and laughs with the others, he seems to be walking on eggshells around Geralt, with none of the playfulness that Geralt is used to.

They’re rarely alone together these days, or in the same room at all outside of mealtimes. They help with different chores in the mornings and Jaskier spends most of his afternoons holed up in the library. When he does come down to the training yard to join the others, Geralt makes sure he’s elsewhere. Since he can no longer walk the grounds safely without being escorted by at least two witchers— Vesemir has threatened to lock him in what’s left of the dungeons if he tries— Geralt takes to sitting on top of the North Tower and either trying to read a book or watching the sparring down below.

At night, he goes to bed before Jaskier and pretends he’s asleep when his boyfriend comes to bed. If he lies still enough, Jaskier will brush a kiss over the back of his neck before he settles down beside him.

The problem is that Geralt doesn’t know how to fix this. He knows that if he tries to talk about all the anger and guilt and fear that he’s feeling, he’ll just say something wrong. He’ll just hurt Jaskier again.

It’s a week after their fight when everyone is sitting at dinner and the subject of Lambert’s beach house in Cidaris comes up.

“It was a great little retirement,” Lambert says grumpily. “But I gave it up to come back here and freeze in the mountains with all of you.”

“All you did was complain,” Eskel points out. “The sun was too hot, there were too many damn tourists, sand was always getting in your ass crack.”

Lambert grumbles into his glass of White Gull. “Fucking sand. Look, not all of us get to retire. I took advantage of it. Wasn’t just going to leave that house sitting for a century, like Geralt has with his winery.”

“Winery?” For the first time since he passed Geralt the bottle of watered down, human-safe White Gull a half an hour ago, Jaskier looks at Geralt.

Before Geralt can answer, Lambert says, “Some duchess in Toussaint paid him for a contract with a winery a hundred years ago. But he never lived there, because what use did a witcher have for a winery?”

Geralt shrugs, avoiding Jaskier’s gaze. “There weren't enough monsters in Toussaint to make a living.”

Lambert laughs. “You could have spent the last hundred years drinking wine and sitting in the sun instead of trudging through swamps, looking for drowners. Only you would choose the latter option.”

“Is it still there? The winery?” Jaskier asks.

“It’s not an active winery anymore,” Geralt says. “But the house is a historical landmark, so the house and the grounds are maintained by the city of Beauclaire.”

Jaskier has a strange look on his face, but he lets Yennefer change the subject to the years she spent living in Beauclaire.

It’s only later, after Geralt has gone to bed, that he hears Jaskier let himself into the room. Instead of crawling into bed, Jaskier stands there silently for a long moment.

“Were you ever going to tell me about Corvo Bianco?” he asks.

Geralt grimaces. So they talked about it more after he went to bed. He thinks about feigning sleep, but Jaskier clearly isn’t falling for it. Instead, he says, “Never saw the point. Toussaint and Posada aren’t exactly close to each other.”

“You own a house, Geralt. That’s the kind of thing I should know.”

Geralt sits up to face him. “Haven’t been there in a hundred years.”

“Why not?”

“It wasn’t payment for a job well done. It was hush money. The duchess’s sister was a murderer, manipulating her vampire lover into massacring people. The whole job was shit and too many people died.”

“So you think you don’t deserve it.”

“I didn’t. You want to run a winery now?”

“I have no idea, but it would have been nice to have the option instead of worrying about how to make rent while you looked for a job!” Jaskier snaps, then takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair.”

Geralt turns back over. “Goodnight, Jaskier.”

Jaskier sighs, then crawls into bed next to Geralt. Tonight, Geralt doesn’t get a kiss.

Geralt doesn’t expect to fall asleep quickly or easily, but he must have, because the next thing he knows is the sound of an explosion outside. He’s up and out of bed before his mind has comprehended the sound, already reaching for his glasses and his knife.

“What the hell was that?” On the other side of the bed, Jaskier is scrambling to free himself of the sheets wrapped around his legs.

The door flies open and Geralt lifts his knife in a defensive position, but it’s just Eskel, already in his armor with his swords strapped to his back. Ciri is standing next to him, still bleary-eyed in her pajamas, though she’s also holding her sword.

“A mage is trying to get through the wards,” Eskel says. “Stay in this room, lights off. Keep away from the door and the window. Ciri, you stay here with them.”

“I can help!”

“You can help by keeping them safe.”

Before Geralt can say anything, Eskel is pulling the door behind him.

“Come on.” Jaskier hurries forward to lock the door and pull Ciri away from it. “Geralt, come here.”

Geralt wants to protest as there’s another explosion outside, followed by a shriek from some creature. He knows his brothers, Yennefer, and Triss are probably out there, fighting the intruder. He should be with them. But when Jaskier reaches his hand out to Geralt, Geralt takes it and lets himself be dragged to the other side of the bed. They hunker down on the ground, with Ciri squeezed between Jaskier and Geralt. Only the bed is between them and the door.

“What the fuck is that?” Jaskier whispers as there’s another animalistic shriek from outside. Geralt can only see a faint outline of him in the dark.

“Eskel said something about constructs.” Ciri sounds frustrated. “But he wouldn’t let me help! What’s the point of all this training, if they’re not going to let me actually fight?”

“You have the most important job in the keep,” Jaskier tells her. “Keeping Geralt and me out of trouble.”

There’s another explosion outside, followed by a shout of pain. A woman’s voice, Geralt thinks, and he feels a surge of worry for Yennefer and Triss. Next to him, Ciri flinches, probably thinking the same thing, and Geralt wraps his arms around her and Jaskier, pulling both of them against him. He can wrap his arms around both of them with ease. Jaskier rests his head against Geralt’s shoulder, his breath tickles the spot under Geralt’s ear.

Jaskier’s hand finds his and squeezes. Geralt laces their fingers together, reassured by the steady rhythm of Jaskier’s pulse. They stay like that for a long time, the three of them huddled together in the darkness, as the sounds of the fight rage outside.

***

Lambert really hates mages sometimes.

“Hand over the Butcher and I’ll let all of you live,” the weaselly little shit says in what’s clearly meant to be a commanding voice.

Lambert looks around at his four fellow witchers and two sorceress allies, then looks at their opponent, who looks about as intimidating as a dishrag. Sure, the three winged, fanged constructs swooping around are pains in the ass, but they’re already managed to kill two others. “Please, gods, no,” he says dryly. “Spare us, we beg you.”

The mage’s mouth twists viciously and he aims a curse at Lambert. Before Lambert can cast Quen to defend himself, Merigold raises her hand and throws up a protection spell in front of Lambert. The curse fizzles off it harmlessly.

Lambert turns to frown at her and she rolls her eyes. “Yes, I know, you had it handled.”

“I’ll let it slide this time.” 

One of the constructs swoops low, shrieking, and Lambert looks up to see Aiden on its back, hacking away at the ugly fucker merrily, grinning like an idiot the entire time. Lambert feels a pang of something that might be fondness. He did get hit in the head with a piece of construct earlier.

Aiden gets the construct in the heart and the thing shatters into bits of clay mid-air. Aiden hurtles towards the ground. He may be a Cat, but Lambert knows that a fall from that height will probably result in broken bones. Lambert drops his swords and reaches out to catch Aiden. The force nearly knocks him off his feet, but he steadies himself.

Aiden is a warm, familiar weight in his arms. He loops his arms around Lambert’s neck and grins up at him.

“My hero,” he says softly.

Lambert clears his throat. “Next time, try not to kill the fucking construct until it’s on the ground.”

“But where’s the fun in that?” Aiden asks. “You know, I may have been listening to too many of the love songs Jaskier has been singing lately, but I think this is the part where I’m supposed to kiss you.”

Lambert drops him.

He blames Aiden for the fact that it’s Coën who drives a sword into the mage's heart while Yennefer has him distracted. The two remaining constructs immediately break into pieces and scatter across the courtyard. Lambert doesn’t get to kill anything tonight.

The only thing Lambert hates more than mages is fucking Cats.

***

When Jaskier steps outside the next morning, he finds signs of last night’s battle scattered across the training yard. There are several large chunks of clay that used to be the constructs lying on the ground. The side of the keep has an ugly char mark and most of the grass in the yard is dead. The dried yellowed grass crunches underfoot as Jaskier goes to pick up one of the pieces of construct. It’s a hand with long, curled talons and he drops it to the grass with a shudder.

“Nasty piece of shit,” Lambert’s voice says behind him and Jaskier jumps and drops the hand.

“Fuck, Lambert, don’t sneak up on me like that!”

The witcher chuckles and comes to stand next to him. “I heard you leaving. You shouldn’t go anywhere outside the keep alone for a couple of days.”

“Sorry, just needed some fresh air.” Jaskier looks around. The woods seem quiet, but that doesn’t mean anything when mages were involved. “The mage, did he talk?”

“Didn’t get a chance. Coën ran the fucker through when he went after Yennefer.”

“Good.” Jaskier nudges the construct’s hand with the toe of his boot.

“You and Geralt kiss and make up yet?”

“We’re not…” Jaskier trails off. “Fucking witcher hearing.”

“And basic observational skills. You know, that fucker last night was smart. He almost got through our wards. If Eskel hadn’t already been awake, he might have gotten through.”

“So, you’re telling me to make up with Geralt because we could have died last night?”

Lambert shrugs. “I’m not telling you shit. Make up with him or don’t. Just be less obvious about your moping.”

“Thanks for the support, Lambert.” Jaskier rolls his eyes.

“Happy to help.”

“What about you and Aiden?” Jaskier asks. “Have you kissed and made up yet?”

The witcher’s eyes narrow. “Does it matter?”

“Well, you did tell me once that you’d never been in love because and I quote, you ‘have a fully functioning brain.’ Oh, and ‘there isn’t a person alive who’s worth centuries of pining.’ Remember that conversation?”

For a second, he thinks he may have hit a nerve and Lambert’s going to either punch him or stalk back to the keep. But instead, the witcher says, “I stand by the ‘no one is worth centuries of pining’ thing. Not even that asshole.”

“That didn’t stop you.”

“No, it didn’t,” Lambert says softly, surprising Jaskier with the easy admission.

“But now that you have him back—”

“I don’t have him back. He let me think he was dead for three hundred years.”

“Do you still love him?”

Lambert isn’t looking at him, instead staring off into the distance. “I don’t know. I didn’t realize… I didn’t know what he meant to me until he was already gone. Or I thought he was gone. Cats and Wolves aren’t supposed to be friends.”

“I don’t think that rule applies anymore,” Jaskier says. “Not when there are so few of you left.”

Lambert grunts in a very Geralt-like fashion. “We’re supposed to be talking about you and my cranky brother, kid.”

“Well, I’m very good at changing the subject when I don’t want to talk about something.”

“You don't want to talk about something? There’s a change.”

“Fuck off, Lambert.”

That earns him a grin. “Both of you have been miserable for the last few days. Just do yourselves a favor and forgive him already.”

“If there was something to forgive, I would,” Jaskier says. “But I don’t know if there is. I think I’ve been trying to make things better for him for the last year, and instead I might have made things worse. Not that I know for sure, because he won’t tell me what he needs.”

“Well, there’s your problem. You expect Geralt to have a clue about what he wants.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“You know him better than anyone,” Lambert says. “Better even than Eskel and me, I think. You’ll figure it out.”

“Wow.” Jaskier blinks. “Was that… genuine encouragement?”

“It was, and it won’t happen again for another century or so.”

“Thanks, Lambert.”

“Don’t mention it,” Lambert grumbles. “You’re family. We look out for each other.”

If Jaskier gets something in his eye, Lambert is polite enough not to mention it.

***

Geralt is walking back to his room from the shower— and after staying at Kaer Morhen for nearly a month, he has to admit that the running water is an improvement— when Eskel passes him in the hallway.

“North Tower, ten minutes,” is all Eskel says.

Geralt frowns at his brother’s retreating back. As far as he knows, there are no repairs that need to be done on the North Tower. He gets dressed and goes up to the top of the tower to find Eskel standing there with two swords in hand.

“Here.” Eskel hands Geralt one of the swords. It’s a blunt-tipped training sword. “Think this should be the right weight.”

Geralt weighs the sword in his hand. “Esk—”

“How’s the weight?”

“Fine.”

“Good.” Eskel strikes a defensive pose. “Ready?”

Before Geralt can answer, Eskel moves. Geralt reacts without thinking, bringing his sword up in a block. Steel rings against steel, the sound echoing off the stone walls. Geralt knows that he wouldn’t have stood a chance if Eskel were using his full strength and speed, but Eskel is holding back.

“The problem,” Eskel says. “Is that you’re still trying to fight like a witcher. You can’t wrestle wyverns with your bare hands anymore. That would have been damn stupid even as a witcher. You need to learn how to fight like a human.”

Geralt grits his teeth. “I can’t fight like this.”

“Bullshit,” Eskel says flatly. “You know how I know that’s bullshit?”

“How?”

“Because of Jaskier. When you met him, could he defend himself at all?”

Geralt snorts, remembering the Jaskier he met three years ago, who couldn’t hold a weapon without looking like he was holding a live bomb. That Jaskier was ungainly and unsure of himself. “No.”

“And look at him now. He’s no witcher, but he’s a damn good fighter. You spent five hundred years as a witcher. That doesn’t go away in a year.” As if to prove his point, Eskel strikes. Geralt blocks it again.

Eskel grins fiercely. “You don’t need to be a witcher to defend yourself, Geralt. You’re not going to be the same fighter you were a year ago, but that doesn’t mean you should stop trying. So come on. Fight me.”

This time, Geralt strikes. Eskel blocks him, but Eskel probably would have been able to block him even when they were both witchers. It’s the first time Geralt has sparred with Eskel in nearly eight decades, but they fall into their old rhythm almost instantly. Geralt knows Eskel’s fighting style as well as he knows his own. He knows his weak spots and his tics. And it feels good to hold a sword again. As they spar, Geralt forgets that he’s not a witcher anymore. He forgets that he’s not as strong or as fast as he used to be. His focus is entirely on the fight.

Finally, when his shoulders ache and his palms are so slick with sweat that he can barely hold a sword, Geralt calls it quits. He collapses into one of the chairs, breathing hard. Eskel sits down next to him.

“You did well,” Eskel says.

Geralt closes his eyes and leans back in the chair. “For a human?”

“No, you just did well. You were always the best fighter of us.” Eskel is quiet for a moment, considering. “And I feel like I should make something clear. I’m not trying to take your place with Jaskier.”

Geralt’s eyes snap open. Fuck, Eskel must have overheard his fight with Jaskier. “I didn’t think you were.”

“Good,” Eskel says. “Because I love that kid, but he’s not my type.”

“No horns?”

“No hooves either.” Eskel shakes his head in mock despair, then his expression sobers. “In all seriousness, he’s like a brother to me. I would never do anything to hurt either of you. I thought I was helping when I invited him along on my hunts. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

“You didn’t,” Geralt says. “It’s been good for him. He’s always so fucking happy when he gets home from your hunts. I wouldn’t want to take that for him. I just miss it.”

“You’re always welcome to join us. I’d like the company.”

“Don’t think I’m ready for that, Esk.” Geralt doesn’t know if he’ll ever be ready for that. The thought of watching Eskel take on monsters, knowing that he’d only be able to take on a supporting role, at best, would be unbearable. Especially if Eskel got hurt and Geralt couldn't help him.

Eskel nods. “I just wanted to make sure we were good, Wolf. I’ve missed you.”

Geralt swallows back the sudden tightness in his throat. “Missed you too. I… I shouldn’t have stayed away for as long as I did.”

“You’re here now,” Eskel says. “That’s what matters.”

Geralt doesn’t know what to say, so he stands up. “I should go find Jaskier.”

Eskel grins. “You probably should.”

Geralt starts to turn away, then pauses. “Thank you. This was nice. We should do it again tomorrow.”

His brother’s smile widens. “We can train every day, if you want.”

“I would.” Geralt nods, then heads downstairs to the library, where he finds Jaskier sitting with Triss, Yennefer, and Ciri.

Jaskier is leaned back in the desk chair, laughing, and Geralt’s stomach gives a little swoop. The sunlight streaming through the window glints in Jaskier’s hair and his smile is brilliant. Geralt never thought he would be the type of person to stop dead at the sight of a pretty smile, but Jaskier has proved him wrong time and time again.

Triss catches sight of Geralt standing in the doorway. She looks at him with a knowing glint in her eye and Geralt wonders if everyone in the damn keep knows about his and Jaskier’s argument. Knowing what gossips his brothers are, probably. “Yenna, Ciri, why don’t we move lessons outside?” she asks, rising to her feet.

“You want to abandon me, Triss?” Jaskier pouts at her.

“No,” she says. “But I think you’re going to be otherwise occupied.”

Jaskier looks around and when he sees Geralt standing there, he looks surprised. “Hey,” he says, voice soft.

“Hi.” It’s ridiculous to feel awkward around the man he’s known for three years and has been his lover for two and a half of them, but Geralt has no idea how to approach Jaskier or what to say to him.

“You’re right,” Yennefer says to Triss. “Come on, Ciri, I think some fresh air will be nice.”

Ciri lets herself be ushered out of the library by Yennefer and Triss. All three shoot Geralt significant looks as they pass. The _“if you fuck this up, I will curse you into oblivion”_ is clear in Yennefer’s expression.

Jaskier looks up at Geralt with a strangely guarded look on his face. Tension is clear in his posture and Geralt can’t tell if it’s anger or nerves causing it. Geralt lowers himself into the chair that Ciri just vacated and decides he can’t let this silence hang between them any longer.

“We should talk,” he tells Jaskier.

***

For someone who wants to talk, Geralt doesn’t seem to have a lot to say. He sits in a chair a few feet away, posture stiff, and looks at a spot somewhere past Jaskier. The urge to fill the silence is overwhelming, but Jaskier forces himself to sit there patiently and let Geralt work his way up to saying whatever he came here to say.

“I was six when I came to Kaer Morhen,” Geralt says finally.

Jaskier doesn’t reply, since Geralt hardly ever wants to talk about his life pre-Path— not his childhood before coming to Kaer Morhen, not his training, and certainly not the Trials— and Jaskier doesn’t want to interrupt.

“My mother and I were going on a trip. She asked me to go get water and then she left me on the side of the road. Vesemir found me and brought me to Kaer Morhen.”

Jaskier has so many questions— was Geralt a child of surprise or did his mother just abandon him? Did he ever see her again? Does he remember anything about her? But now isn’t the time, so he keeps quiet.

“A witcher is trained for one purpose, and that’s been my purpose since the day I came here,” Geralt continues. “I went through the Trials when I was twelve, along with eighteen other boys. Only five of us survived. They put me through the Trial of the Grasses again when I was thirteen as an experiment.”

Jaskier shudders.

“And as soon as I went on the Path, my purpose was to travel from town to town, killing monsters and making coin. I only saw my brothers during the winter if I was able to make it back to Kaer Morhen before the snows hit. The rest of the year, there was no one. Sometimes, there would be an innkeeper who I knew would always be friendly or a whore who wasn’t scared of me. But they always grew old and one day, I’d come back to town and they’d be gone.” Geralt suddenly looks very old and very tired. “And then Blaviken happened. After that, most people were scared of me.”

Jaskier feels a surge of hatred for Stregobor, dead for over two years now.

“We never knew how long a witcher would live on his own if he were allowed to live out his natural lifespan, because that never happened,” Geralt says. “Rennes was the oldest witcher I ever knew, and he was four hundred when he died in the sacking. I always had it in my head that four hundred was the oldest I would live to. And then the next thing I knew, I was four hundred. Vesemir was six hundred at that point, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that I was still alive, but I just…”

He trails off and Jaskier sits quietly, waiting for him to gather his thoughts.

For the first time, Geralt looks straight at Jaskier. “It wasn’t that I wanted to die. I just felt stagnant. The world had changed in four hundred years and I hadn’t. I’d been traveling the Path for centuries and I had nothing to show for it, besides scars and people still calling me a Butcher. I felt like I was waiting for something, but I didn’t know what.

“That’s when I stopped seeing the point of coming back to Kaer Morhen. We were all the same every single year. So I just kept traveling and killing monsters. And then I met you and things started changing for the first time in a long time. I met Ciri. Yennefer came back into my life. I reconnected with Lambert and Eskel. But there were still monsters to kill. I still had something to do.”

Jaskier’s heart twists in his chest.

“There are a lot of good memories here, but there are also a lot of bad. The Trials. The sacking. Watching my brothers die. And being back here reminds me that it was all for nothing. Five hundred years as a witcher and none of it matters in the end.”

Jaskier can't stay silent any longer. “No, not for nothing. Geralt, you saved so many people while you were a witcher. You saved me, remember?”

Geralt doesn’t say anything.

Jaskier stands up to close the space between them, cupping Geralt’s face in his hands. “Every monster you killed, every person you helped, it all matters. You were a great witcher, Geralt. And you’re still a good man. And I’m sorry. I think I’ve been focused so hard on trying to act like everything is okay, I haven’t always been there for you like you needed me to.”

Geralt covers Jaskier’s hands with his. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have planned to leave without you. That was shit.”

“It’s okay,” Jaskier says. "You were scared."

“I just didn’t know what else to do.”

“You don’t always need to know what to do, Geralt,” Jaskier says. “You don’t always have to have the answers. You don’t always need to have a purpose, either. Or at least, you don’t have to have a purpose that’s as high-stakes as saving small towns from monsters.”

“Then what should it be?”

“You’re the one who needs to decide that, love. But whatever it is, I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen. We’re in this together, Geralt. Always.”

Geralt stands up to kiss him and Jaskier happily leans into his boyfriend’s touch. And for a moment, everything is okay.

***


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Eternal Fire make their move, Jaskier, Ciri, Lambert, and Triss are taken captive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're at the end! Thank you for all your kudos and comments so far!
> 
> As always, thank you to dls for betaing!

“I know,” Jaskier says much later, when they’re curled up together in bed. Jaskier is lying on top of Geralt with his chin propped on Geralt’s chest, looking up at him with sleepy contentment. They skipped dinner and Geralt is starting to get hungry, but he’s not going to move when Jaskier looks so comfortable.

“Hm?” Geralt strokes a hand down Jaskier’s bare back.

“You should come work at the coffee shop. There’s a yoga studio next door. I think their clientele would really enjoy a side of beef with their triple shot soy lattes.” Jaskier waggles his eyebrows lasciviously. “You’re the beef, if that isn’t clear.”

“Wasn’t clear at all,” Geralt deadpans.

“Ah, it only took me nearly twenty-eight years, but I’ve mastered the fine art of subtlety. Excellent.”

Geralt remembers that Jaskier’s twenty-eighth birthday is coming up in June, only a couple of weeks away. He’ll need to figure out something they can do to celebrate, even though they’re on a mountain, far away from all of Jaskier’s favorite bars and restaurants. He’ll talk to Ciri; she’ll have ideas.

“What makes you happy?” Jaskier asks.

Geralt doesn’t even have to think about it. “You.”

Jaskier rolls his eyes. “I don’t count. What do you _do_ that makes you happy?”

Geralt smirks. “You.”

He doesn’t think it’s that funny, but Jaskier dissolves into helpless laughter, shoulders shaking as he presses his face into Geralt’s chest to muffle the sound. Geralt is overcome by a swell of love and he knows he’s smiling stupidly, but he doesn’t care. He holds Jaskier close until his boyfriend finally calms down and looks up at him with too-bright eyes.

“I like fixing up Roach,” Geralt tells him. “But don’t think I’m skilled enough to fix cars professionally. I like being outside. Nature. Don’t want to get a degree to be a park ranger though. I liked teaching you and Ciri how to defend yourselves.”

Jaskier mentioned Geralt teaching self-defense classes right after Geralt got turned into a human, but he didn't give it much thought. Maybe it’s something he should look into more seriously. If they ever get off this mountain, that is.

“You are good at it,” Jaskier says. “I’ve been told by multiple sources that I’m pretty badass, for a human.”

Geralt cocks an eyebrow. “Have you?”

“Well, the word ‘badass’ was never used, but it was implied.”

Geralt chuckles. “You have gotten decent with a sword. Eskel’s a good teacher.”

“He is, but not as good as you.” Jaskier’s hand creeps lower, sliding down Geralt’s belly. “Though I’ve always had a natural talent with swords.”

It’s a terrible joke, but Geralt doesn’t have time to give him a hard time about it before Jaskier distracts him so thoroughly that he forgets his own name for several minutes.

The next morning, they wake up to discover that an assassin tried to scale the walls of the keep the night before, but fell to his death. Vesemir finds the corpse directly beneath Geralt’s bedroom window. Geralt wonders if the assassin got close enough to hear Jaskier’s breathless, joyful laughter and the thought makes his insides twist.

They switch bedrooms with Eskel, just in case.

***

Things aren’t completely back to normal— Jaskier doesn’t think they’ll ever totally be back to normal, not after what Geralt went through last year— but Geralt is talking to Jaskier again. He’s making an effort to be open about what he wants, what he’s afraid of, and what he’s still mourning. For his part, Jaskier is trying to tamp down on his instincts to try to fix everything and just listen.

A week after their talk, Geralt joins everyone else in the training yard for sparring. He’s been sparring with Eskel on top of the North Tower all week, away from prying eyes. He looks uncertain at first, sitting at his usual spot on the wall for a while, watching as Jaskier spars with Coën. To Jaskier’s surprise, it’s Lambert who convinces Geralt to join in.

“Come on, Wolf,” Lambert says. “I haven’t kicked your ass in almost eighty years.”

Geralt arches an eyebrow. “Pretty sure I can still kick your ass as a human.”

“Come on, then.” Lambert gestures to himself.

Jaskier pauses his match against Coën as he watches Geralt and Lambert fight. Sure, it’s clear that Lambert is holding back, but no more than he does when he spars with Jaskier. Geralt moves with the same fluid grace he had as a witcher. A year without handling a sword clearly hasn’t diminished his skills. Jaskier is reminded of the first time he saw Geralt in battle, how he didn’t know anyone could move that fast. Geralt is slower than he used to be. He’s not as strong. But he’s far from the helpless human he seemed convinced he was last week.

Lambert wins, because no matter how impressive Geralt is, Lambert is still a witcher. He crows in triumph. “Not bad, Wolf. Just not good enough.”

Jaskier isn’t sure how Geralt will react to Lambert’s boasting. To his surprise, his boyfriend chuckles. Maybe it would have been worse if Lambert were a gracious winner. It would be such un-Lambert-like behavior, it would be clear he was coddling Geralt. “Too bad you’re still shit at Gwent.”

“Oh, fuck off!”

“Have another match in you?” Jaskier asks Geralt.

Geralt looks at Jaskier with a glint in his eye. “Think I might.”

“Great,” Jaskier says a little breathlessly, because being the focus of Geralt’s gaze is still a lot, even after all these years of knowing him.

As he and Geralt start to spar, Jaskier is brought back to all those mornings they trained in their backyard, sometimes before the sun had even risen. It’s different now. Jaskier has improved by leaps and bounds since last year and Geralt is no longer holding back, afraid of hurting Jaskier with his witcher strength. But it still feels like old times as they move together in a flurry of swords, circling each other as they spar.

And then Jaskier reaches out, grabs the front of Geralt’s shirt, and pulls him into a kiss. It’s an old strategy of his, but before he can reach up to poke Geralt in the stomach with his practice sword, he feels Geralt’s sword press against his side. Lambert makes a disgusted noise and shouts something about them needing a room, but Geralt and Jaskier both ignore him.

“You’re getting predictable,” Geralt murmurs.

Jaskier grins up at him. “Are you complaining?”

Geralt shakes his head. “No.”

***

There isn’t much to do for Jaskier’s twenty-eighth birthday on a remote mountain top, but Geralt makes do the best he can. Eskel and Aiden keep Jaskier distracted for the day while Geralt and Ciri decorate the dining hall with streamers and balloons. Triss portals to a bakery in Ard Carraigh to pick up a birthday cake. Vesemir grumbles about “shitty fake food” but agrees to let Geralt make Jaskier’s favorite foods— namely pizza, nachos, and mac n’ cheese— for dinner. It’s not the night out that they would have had if they were still in Posada, but Geralt can’t regret it too much when Jaskier’s expression brightens as soon as he comes inside and finds the decorated dining hall.

They build a bonfire outside, feast on junk food, and play all of Jaskier’s favorite music. Jaskier plays every single version of “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher,” along with all the remixes, until even the ever-patient Eskel is ready to hurl his laptop into the fire. But Jaskier is downright giddy, especially after the White Gull comes out and they begin making s’mores.

Ciri snaps a picture of Geralt and Jaskier sitting together, with Jaskier perched on Geralt’s lap. Jaskier is wrapped up in Geralt’s jacket and holding a s’more, not even noticing the marshmallow dribbling down his wrist, as he grins at something Triss said off camera. Geralt’s lips are curved into a small smile as he looks up at his boyfriend, one arm wrapped around Jaskier’s waist and the other on his knee.

Geralt has Ciri send the picture to him. He already knows that it’s going to be his favorite picture of him and Jaskier for a long, long time.

***

Before Jaskier knows it, a month has passed since the mage attacked the keep and things have been mostly calm. There’s been one more attempt to break into the keep by a pair of wannabe assassins who fled into the night as soon as Lambert caught them at the door.

“Weren’t even worth chasing,” Lambert said with a disgusted sniff the morning after. “One of them pissed himself, he was so scared. They won’t be coming back.”

The witchers, Triss, and Yennefer have been taking turns keeping guard at night, but besides the two attempted break ins, there hasn’t been much excitement. Jaskier is starting to wonder if some other poor person has earned the Eternal Fire’s wrath. Maybe Geralt, Jaskier, and Aiden are old news.

It’s the first day that it’s been truly warm since Jaskier arrived at Kaer Morhen and Lambert gets it in his head that he wants to go fishing. As Jaskier has heard plenty of stories about Lambert’s fishing strategies from Ciri, he decides to accompany Lambert and Ciri. Triss tags along for extra protection.

“You really think we need a bodyguard, Merigold?” Lambert demands as Triss perches on the edge of a rock next to the lake, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat.

“I think you'll need a healer if you blow your own hands off,” Triss says dryly.

“What kind of dumbass do you think I am?”

“The kind who uses bombs instead of a fishing rod.”

Lambert gapes at her, looking rather like a fish himself. “Damn, Merigold, Yennefer’s rubbing off on you. After all these years, you’re finally getting interesting.”

Triss smiles at him sweetly from underneath the brim of her hat. “What a relief to hear you say that. I’ve just been waiting centuries for your approval, Lambert.”

Sitting at the edge of the pond with his feet dangling in the water, Ciri next to him, Jaskier rolls his eyes at their bickering. “Is there a reason you fish with bombs?” he asks.

“Yeah, blowing shit up is more fun than dangling a line in the water for hours.”

“But don’t you kill more fish than you need?”

“Nah, the bombs aren’t that powerful.” Lambert weighs one of the bombs in his hand, looking at it fondly. “Back when there was a whole keep full of witchers and trainees to feed, they were stronger. This will probably bag us a few fish and if there are extra, I’ll smoke the meat for later. Now get your feet out of the water. If I accidentally blow you up, Geralt will be grumpy.”

Jaskier reluctantly withdraws his feet from the cool water. “Fish better be worth it.”

“You’re welcome to go find a deer for dinner.”

Jaskier wrinkles his nose. “No, thank you. I leave the hunting to you and Mousesack.”

“Shocking. This is going to be loud.”

Lambert tosses the bomb into the lake. For a moment, there’s silence. Then there’s a blast and the water steams and ripples as several fish bob to the surface.

“Effective,” Jaskier says. “Think you might need another bomb though, Lambert. Some of those fish are scrawny.”

He turns to Lambert, expecting a sarcastic comment or a suggestion to fuck off, but finds Lambert swaying on his feet, clutching the side of his neck with a strange look on his face.

“Lambert?” Jaskier scrambles to his feet just as there’s a loud pop and Triss cries out. He looks up in time to see Triss’s hat fly off her head as her head whips around. There’s a dart embedded in her shoulder, right over her heart. There’s an identical one buried in Lambert’s neck as Lambert slumps to the ground.

“Fuck.” Jaskier drops to his knees besides Lambert, whose eyes are glazed over. Tranquilizer? Poison? Jaskier has no idea, and he’s afraid to rip the dart out and potentially cause damage. “Ciri, run. Go back to the keep and get help.”

Ciri doesn’t argue. In a flash, she’s on her feet and sprinting back towards the keep. Jaskier hates letting her go alone, but she’s more capable of defending herself than Triss and Lambert are at the moment.

“Triss?” he asks, glancing towards the sorceress.

“Dimeritium.” Triss’s words are slurred. “Get it out.”

Lambert’s eyes are closed and he’s limp, either unconscious or close to it. There’s nothing Jaskier can do for him right now. He scrambles towards Triss, just as another crack rends the air and he feels something embed itself in the center of his back. Jaskier stumbles, knocked off balance by the force of the shot, and trips over Lambert’s bag of bombs. He goes to his knees, head swimming. He tries to reach for Triss, but his hands don’t seem to be working.

From the trees, he hears Ciri scream. It’s not her chaos-filled scream, but a short, sharp shriek, like she’s been taken by surprise. Or shot with a dart by a sniper. Jaskier tries to shout her name, but he doesn’t get the words out before his head hits the ground.

Then there’s nothing.

***

When Lambert jerks back to consciousness, his head hurts like a bitch and his mouth is dry— whatever was in that dart was damn strong— but he’s awake and ready to kick some ass.

If only his hands weren’t cuffed behind his back and his torso chained to a tree.

Lambert tests the cuffs, but they’re sturdy, as are the chains that wrap around him from shoulder to ankle. Whoever their captors are, they clearly aren’t taking any chances. To his left, he hears a muffled noise. Jaskier is tied to a tree a few feet away, looking at him with panicked eyes. There’s a piece of cloth shoved in his mouth, but he’s still trying to talk. On the other side of him, Ciri is also handcuffed, gagged, and tied to a tree, squirming against her bonds desperately. Merigold lies on the ground a few feet away, wrists bound behind her back. From the way she’s shaking, skin glistening with sweat, Lambert is pretty sure she’s been dosed with dimeritium. Her heartbeat is erratic and her breaths are shallow. Even if she regains consciousness, the dimeritium will leave her powerless.

Fuck.

Once he’s ascertained that his companions are mostly unharmed, Lambert glances around. He can hear activity on the other side of the tree— heartbeats, men’s voices, boots crunching on sticks and leaves. He can’t see shit from this angle, and there are too many people for him to determine exactly how many people have them captive. He’s guessing anywhere between fifteen and twenty. Even if he manages to get out of these chains, that’s too many for him to take on by himself.

Double fuck.

Witchers don’t waste time panicking, especially not when there are three innocent lives in the balance, so Lambert assesses their surroundings. They must be down the mountain from Kaer Morhen. If they were up the mountain, the activity here would have been audible from the keep. He can hear the burbling of a creek nearby, though that doesn’t help him ascertain where they are exactly in relation to Kaer Morhen.

Jaskier is still trying to talk to him, his heart rate picking up.

“I’m fine,” Lambert tells him, voice hoarse. He doesn’t waste his breath on empty reassurances. Eskel, Coën, or Geralt would tell Jaskier that everything is going to be okay, that they’ll get out of this. Lambert knows they’re fucked and doesn’t see the point in denying it.

From behind him, he hears footsteps coming closer, and he tenses. Jaskier abruptly falls silent. A rangy, sandy-haired man enters Lambert’s line of sight. Lambert’s eyes flicker to the man’s neck, where he finds a small flame tattoo under the man’s right ear.

“Got tired of relying on hired help?” Lambert asks, because the fuckers were dumb enough not to gag him and he intends to make them regret that. “Decided to come yourself?”

The Eternal Fire cultist— because that’s what they are, a fucking cult, even if they’ve traded in their robes for camo bulletproof vests and their witch burnings for machine guns— sneers down at him. “I had to gag these two for running their mouths nonstop.” He jerks his thumb at Jaskier and Ciri. “You should shut the fuck up, or you’re getting gagged too.”

Lambert bares his teeth in response and the man turns away from him, towards Jaskier.

“Hey.” Lambert yanks on the handcuffs around his wrists fruitlessly. “Hey, you hate mutants, right? Well, your mutant is right here. Don’t bother with him.”

The man crouches down in front of Jaskier, who holds very still. “Remember me?”

Slowly, Jaskier nods.

“Good.” The man fumbles in his pocket, then pulls out a small key. “You start running your mouth again, I’m going to cut your tongue out, got it?”

Jaskier hesitates, then nods.

“I need you alive for now, but that will change.” The man yanks Jaskier’s gag out, then unlocks the handcuffs around his wrists. 

Wincing, Jaskier rubs the red marks left by the cuffs. “Alek, was it? Look, if this is about what happened at the bar—”

Lambert remembers Alek as the name of the Eternal Fire cultist Yennefer got cozy with at an Eternal Fire bar in Novigrad during her and Jaskier’s hunt for Geralt. She was fairly certain that he was a high-ranking member of the Eternal Fire, if not their leader.

Alek bandhands Jaskier across the face. “What did I say about running your mouth?”

Jaskier’s lip is split. He prods at the line of blood with his tongue. “If you think that’s running my mouth—”

Alek straightens up and draws a gun from his waistband. Jaskier’s jaw audibly clicks shut. But Alek doesn’t put a bullet in Jaskier’s skull. Instead, he pulls out a cell phone and tosses it to Jaskier.

“Unlock your phone,” he tells Jaskier. “We’re going to make a call.”

Jaskier’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “No.”

“No?”

“I’m not luring Geralt here so you can kill him. Shoot me if you want to. You’re not getting near my boyfriend.”

“Who said anything about shooting you?” Alek points the gun directly between Lambert’s eyes.

Ciri screams through her gag and Jaskier cries, “Wait!”

Lambert laughs. “Go the fuck ahead.”

The cultist looks taken aback. “You want to die, mutant?”

Lambert shrugs as best he can when he’s lashed to a tree. “You’re on this mountain to kill mutants. If you’re going to shoot anyone, might as well be me. You can let Jaskier and Ciri go and make target practice out of me.”

He doesn’t bother bargaining for Merigold’s life, though that causes him a pang of regret. She’s a mage. They want to kill her as much as they want to kill him.

“He’s a mutant fucker. And I don’t know what the fuck she is.” Alek jerks his chin at Ciri. “A witch, a witcher, or some other abomination, but she nearly killed two of my men.”

Lambert feels a swell of pride. “Sounds like you should train your men better.”

The safety of the gun flicks off. Both Jaskier and Ciri flinch, but Lambert looks right into Alek’s eyes.

“Do it,” he growls. “You make a lot of noise about eradicating mutants. Eradicate me.”

The gunshot may be loud enough to alert the witchers at Kaer Morhen that there’s a problem. If dying is the only way Lambert can protect Jaskier, Ciri, and Merigold, then so be it.

Alek steps forward, pressing the barrel of the gun to Lambert’s forehead. Lambert closes his eyes.

Aiden’s face flashes through his mind, splattered with ichor and grinning at their first meeting over three hundred years before. His voice echoes in Lambert’s memories. _“You know, they say Wolves are all bark and no bite.”_ A lascivious once-over. _“I really hope they’re wrong about that.”_ Lambert wishes he hadn’t spent the last few weeks so angry with Aiden.

“Wait,” Jaskier says. “Wait, don’t hurt him.”

“Then unlock your phone.”

Lambert opens his eyes in time to see Jaskier comply. “Jaskier, don’t be an—”

Jaskier hands his phone back to Alek.

Alek holds the phone up. “Why don’t we give your boyfriend a call?”

***

Geralt has just returned to his room from a post-sparring shower when his phone rings. When he sees Jaskier’s grinning face on the screen, he answers the video call. The screen is pixelated for a moment; the service here really is shit.

“I hope you’re not calling because Lambert blew his hand off,” Geralt says.

The pixelation clears and the face staring at him isn’t Jaskier. Instead, it’s a sandy-haired man in his early forties with pale eyes. “Hello, Butcher,” the man says.

Geralt goes cold. “Who the fuck are you?”

“The question you should be asking,” the man says. “Is what I’m going to do to your boyfriend if you don’t do what I say.”

The man’s face vanishes, replaced by Jaskier. Geralt’s heart plummets to somewhere in the region of his belly button. Jaskier is tied to a tree, a gag shoved in his mouth. He has a bruised cheek and his eyes are full of fury and terror. He tries to speak through his gag and even without being able to make out the words, Geralt knows exactly what he’s saying. _“Don’t listen to him. Don’t come for me. Don’t do anything stupid._ ”

“Jask, it will be okay,” Geralt says, but the phone is panning away from Jaskier. First, it shows Ciri, also tied to a tree and gagged, tear tracks streaked down her face, and Triss, who is lying on the ground, looking barely conscious. Then it pans in the other direction and shows Lambert, chained to a tree and spitting with rage.

“Geralt, don’t be a fucking idiot,” Lambert says and then a boot connects with his face. Lambert’s head snaps around.

Geralt growls under his breath. “Leave them alone.”

The sandy-haired man’s face appears again. “You want them back, Butcher?”

“If anything happens to them…”

“What will you do? I heard a rumor that you were a human now. Just a normal mortal man. Like him.” There’s the thud, as if from a boot against flesh, and a muffled cry of pain. Jaskier.

Geralt tries to swallow down the panic that he can feel starting to rise. Jaskier, Ciri, Lambert, and Triss are all counting on him keeping a clear head. “You can have me. I’m the one you want. You can leave them out of this.”

“Of course,” the man says. “Come alone and unarmed, and I’ll let your boyfriend and the little girl go.”

Off camera, Geralt hears a muffled yell from Jaskier.

“Don’t be stupid, Geralt.” Lambert sounds exasperated. “He’s going to kill all of us. He’s Eternal Fire. He doesn’t give a damn about keeping his word. You come, and we’re all dead.”

The man’s lips curl back into a sneer. “Your mouthy friend is on my last nerve. May put a bullet in his head just to get some peace and quiet.”

“Don’t,” Geralt croaks; the thought of anything happening to Lambert makes him feel ill. His reckless, brave little brother is supposed to outlive him, damn it.

“At this point, killing him is going to be a pleasure.”

Geralt has to get his attention away from Lambert. “What happened to the assassins you were sending after us? What’s the point of that bounty, if you were just going to come yourself to kill us anyway?”

“We couldn’t find a lot of assassins willing to attack a keep full of witchers, especially after what you did to the mage we sent,” the man says. “Sometimes, if you want a job done, you got to do it yourself. Either way, you’re dead. That’s all that matters.”

There’s a pained noise from Jaskier and Ciri shouts through her gag.

Geralt closes his eyes. “I’ll come alone. Just don’t hurt them. If you’re going to hurt someone, have it be me.”

“We’ll see.” The man gives Geralt directions to the place where the Eternal Fire are hiding out, about ten miles down the mountain.

“And remember,” the man says. “You try anything, the first bullet goes right between your boyfriend’s eyes.”

Geralt nods. “I understand.”

“Good. Then maybe you’ll be the only one who dies today.”

“Geralt!” Lambert roars. “If you walk into this trap, I swear to all the gods—”

The call ends.

***

Jaskier works at the gag shoved in his mouth with his tongue, trying to loosen it. It chafes the corners of his mouth and rubs painfully at his split lip. His hands twist uselessly at the handcuffs binding his wrists. Behind him, he can hear Alek and the other members of the Eternal Fire talking and laughing quietly. There’s no fear or uncertainty in their voices; they’re certain that they’ve won. It’s infuriating.

He glances over at Ciri and sees that she’s staring straight ahead, looking furious. She hasn’t stopped trying to get loose from her handcuffs, even though her wrists must be as bruised from the effort as Jaskier’s are. On her other side, Triss is still on the ground. Jaskier can’t tell if she’s conscious, or if she’s even still alive. Can enough dimeritium kill a mage?

Jaskier has spent so much time training to make sure he would never feel this helpless again, but it’s all for nothing. He’s handcuffed, gagged, and tied to a tree. His weapons are gone. He can’t do anything to protect himself or Lambert, Ciri, and Triss. He can’t do anything to stop Geralt from walking to his death.

“Jaskier, breathe,” Lambert says and only then does Jaskier realize that his breaths are coming out in shallow, panicked gasps.

Jaskier looks over at the witcher, who is doing a better job than Jaskier expected at keeping a calm face.

“They’re either going to kill us or they’re not,” Lambert says. “Panicking doesn’t help.”

Jaskier tries to tell him to fuck off, though the words come out garbled around the gag.

“I might be able to convince them to let you and Ciri live,” Lambert says.

Jaskier gives him a skeptical look. If their survival hinges on Lambert being charming and persuasive, they’re as good as fucked.

Lambert’s lips quirk, like he’s thinking the same thing. “I’ll do my best to keep you alive for as long as possible.”

Jaskier knows that’s the best thing Lambert can offer him as far as reassurance goes right now. There are a lot of very armed men behind them, And if Geralt listens to Alek and comes alone… Well, Jaskier can’t think about that, or he’s really going to start panicking.

Lambert goes still, looking off into the distance. “Oh, that fucking idiot. He can’t possibly be that stupid. _Fuck._ ”

Jaskier’s heart begins to pound, because if Lambert looks like this, like he’s barely able to contain his own panic, then Jaskier knows that something terrible is happening. Lambert starts to struggle against the chains around him, cursing under his breath.

And then, Jaskier hears a familiar voice say, “I’m here. I came alone, like you asked.”

The ropes around Jaskier’s torso loosen and for a miraculous instant, he thinks he’s managed to successfully free himself. Then a hand seizes his upper arm and hauls him to his feet. He finds himself looking up at a man holding a hunting knife. The ropes that were binding Jaskier a moment before lay crumpled on the ground, severed.

“Hey,” Lambert growls. “Leave him the fuck alone.”

The man ignores him, pressing the knife to Jaskier’s side. “Come say bye to your boyfriend, mutant fucker.”

***

There are no less than a dozen guns pointed at Geralt. He stands at the edge of the Eternal Fire camp, with his hands raised in surrender. The sandy-haired man he spoke to on the phone is at the center of it all, his gun aimed directly at Geralt’s head. Geralt keeps his hands raised in surrender, heartbeat thundering in his throat.

“I’m here,” he says again. “You can let them go.”

A burly, balding man drags Jaskier forward, a knife pressed against his side. Jaskier is shouting through his gag, eyes bright with panic and cuffed hands twisting helplessly behind him. His captor shoves Jaskier at the sandy-haired man’s feet with a muttered, “Here you go, Alek.”

Not taking his eyes off Geralt, Alek presses his gun to the back of Jaskier’s head. “Are you sure you came alone, Butcher?”

The world has narrowed down to the steel pressed against Jaskier’s dark hair, the way his chest rises and falls rapidly, the plea in his eyes when he looks at Geralt. Not pleading for his own life, Geralt knows, but pleading for Geralt to run and save himself.

“Yes,” Geralt says through numb lips. “Where are the others?”

“Alive.” Alek’s lips twist into a smirk. “For now.”

Geralt’s eyes fall on two trees at the edge of the camp, one with chains wrapped around the trunk, the other with rope. Lambert and Ciri must be on the other side of those trees, less than fifty feet from him. “You said—”

“The world won’t miss a mutant, a witch, and a teenage abomination.” Jaskier winces as Alek shoves the gun harder into his skull. “And no one will miss this one either. Not only is he fucking a mutant, he spread word of you all over the Continent. Lied to innocent folks, made them think you were some kind of hero, and not something worse than the monsters you kill.”

Geralt allows himself a moment of relief that Jaskier is gagged, because judging from the fury blazing in Jaskier’s eyes, he would say something to get himself shot if he weren’t.

“He’s just a blogger,” Geralt says. “He didn’t know what he was doing.”

“No, I think he knew exactly what he was doing.” Alek’s gaze flickers to Jaskier. There’s a coldness in his pale eyes that chills Geralt to the bone. “And I think he deserves to pay the price.”

There’s a click as the safety of the gun switches off. Jaskier flinches.

“Have you ever heard of Axii?” Geralt asks, trying not to let his desperation show. He needs to do something to get Alek to point that gun anywhere but at Jaskier. “It’s a mind control sign.”

Jaskier gives him a horrified look.

“I used Axii on him. I made him write those stories. I made him fall in love with me. He’s been under mind control this entire time.” Geralt looks straight at the gunman, ignoring Jaskier’s muffled protests. “He’s a victim. If you’re going to point that gun at anyone, make it be me. He doesn’t deserve it.”

Alek raises his gun and points it at Geralt. “Don’t know if I believe you.”

“Believe it.” Geralt swallows. “Like you said, I’m a mutant. Why would someone like Jaskier want someone like me?”

The noise Jaskier makes is pure agony.

“He doesn’t deserve your revenge,” Geralt says. “So please, let him live.”

Alek smiles. “I don’t think so, Butcher. But it was a nice speech.”

As Alek pulls the trigger, Geralt casts Quen and a golden shield springs up in front of him. The bullet bounces off harmlessly.

Geralt smirks at the man’s confusion. “You know, if you read Jaskier’s blog, you would have expected that.”

Aiden drops from the trees onto the group of Eternal Fire members below and the clearing explodes into chaos.

***

Around Jaskier, there’s an overwhelming array of shouting, gunshots, and the clash of steel. He's still kneeling on the ground, hunched over to make himself a smaller target with his face pressed to the ground, all-too-aware of the bullets whizzing above him. When hands grab him, he tries to thrash against the grip.

“It’s me,” Eskel says and Jaskier lets himself be dragged to his feet and hauled away from the fighting, towards Geralt. Jaskier glances over his shoulder and sees that Vesemir, Coën, and Aiden are taking on the other members of the Eternal Fire. Yennefer is nowhere to be seen, probably freeing Lambert, Ciri, and Triss.

“Hold your wrists as far from your body as you can,” Eskel says.

Jaskier complies and feels the _whoosh_ of air as Eskel uses Aard to break the handcuffs. As soon as his hands are free, Jaskier rips the gag out of his mouth and lunges forward to throw his arms around Geralt’s neck.

“You didn’t come alone.” Jaskier is dizzy with a rush of mingled relief and terror.

Geralt squeezes Jaskier gently. “Of course I didn’t. They weren’t going to let you live, even if I did everything I said.”

“We let him walk down the mountain so the Eternal Fire’s scouts would see him and portaled in behind him.” Eskel draws two swords from his back and holds them out to Geralt and Jaskier. “You’ll need these.”

Jaskier would dearly love to cling to Geralt and never let go, but there’s a fight going on. And while four witchers would normally be able to cut through a dozen human men with no issue, the guns level the playing field. Already, there are three men dead on the ground, but Vesemir is sporting a nasty bullet wound to his upper arm and Coën’s forehead is bleeding. And there are more followers of the Eternal Fire slipping out of the woods, drawn by the sounds of fighting. Geralt hits two of them with Igni, sending both men flailing backwards, screaming.

“Just try to keep your heads down and if anyone points a gun at you, cast Quen and—” Eskel’s words are cut off as there’s a pop of a distant gunshot and a bullet hits him square in the chest. The force knocks him off his feet.

“Eskel!” Geralt shouts as Jaskier drops to his knees next to the witcher, frantically scrambling to find a wound.

“It’s fine,” Eskel wheezes and Jaskier finds the bullet embedded in the witcher’s armor, right over his heart. “Just winded.”

“That came from the trees.” Geralt plants himself between Jaskier and Eskel and the direction the bullet came from, a Quen shield shimmering in the air in front of him.

Remembering the darts that hit them earlier, Jaskier turns around and calls, “Aiden, sniper!”

“I’m on it!” The Cat cuts down the man he was fighting and sprints in the direction the bullet came from, vanishing into the trees.

Another bullet hits the ground only inches from Jaskier’s thigh, just as a shimmering golden shield, not unlike a giant Quen shield, springs up around the camp. There’s a crack as a bullet ricochets off the shield. Jaskier looks up to see Ciri standing in the middle of the chaos, hands outstretched and eyes closed. Triss stands behind her, looking ashen and shaken, with her hand on Ciri’s shoulder, anchoring her. A man lunges towards Ciri and she lets out a short, sharp scream, sending him flying backwards.

“Looks like those magic lessons are paying off,” Jaskier says.

There’s a war cry as Lambert joins the fray. He has no weapons, but that doesn’t stop him from seizing one of the men fighting Vesemir and hurling him against Ciri’s shield. The man falls to the ground, twitching as if electrocuted. Yennefer follows Lambert, her expression pure rage. Jaskier almost feels sorry for Alek and his asshole minions, who have no idea what wrath they brought down upon themselves when they injured Triss. She twists her wrist and three men immediately fall with snapped necks.

“Jaskier! Geralt!” Eskel barks and Jaskier looks around to see that two men have broken away from the fight and are heading straight for Jaskier, Geralt, and Eskel. Eskel casts Aard, blasting the man in front backwards into his companion. They both fall to the ground. For a brief moment, Jaskier thinks the threat is neutralized, until one of the men rolls away from his companion and aims his gun at Eskel. Jaskier lunges to shield Eskel with his body, just as Geralt yanks a knife from his brother’s belt and hurls it at the gunman. The knife embeds in the man’s eye and he falls.

Jaskier’s heart is in his throat. “Good throw, my love.”

“Come on.” Geralt bends down and grabs Eskel by the arms. “We need to get you up.”

As Geralt hauls Eskel up, the dead man’s companion staggers to his feet and runs straight at Jaskier, who is still crouched on the ground. Jaskier swings his sword, catching the man across the legs. Blood sprays and the man howls in pain. With the arm not holding Eskel up, Geralt plunges his sword into the man’s abdomen. The man gives a surprised little cough, then crumples to the ground in front of Jaskier.

Jaskier yanks Geralt’s sword out of the corpse and hands it back to Geralt. “Everyone good?”

“Think I may have a couple broken ribs.” Eskel’s breathing still sounds labored. “Other than that, I’m good.”

Jaskier rolls his eyes as he rises to his feet. “Oh, other than that? Witchers!”

There’s a high, pained cry and Jaskier turns around to see Ciri clutching her forearm, where blood is welling up from a wound. The shield around the camp flickers, but doesn’t fade. Triss loops an arm around Ciri’s shoulders, pulling her close as if she can block the girl from more bullets. As Jaskier watches, another gunman takes aim at them and is cut down by a snarling Coën before he can get off a shot.

Without thinking, Jaskier starts towards Ciri and Triss. Most of their attackers are dead, with only a handful left on their feet, but Ciri and Triss are still in the middle of a bloodbath with Triss weakened and Ciri injured. He hears Geralt shout his name, but his focus is entirely on Ciri. He’s only steps away from her when someone grabs Jaskier by the back of the t-shirt and the barrel of a gun presses against his lower back.

“You mutants are going to let us walk away,” Alek snarls. “Or I’m going to—”

Jaskier knows he should be terrified, but white hot rage smothers his fear. He’s so fucking tired of having guns pointed at him and of people trying to use him to hurt Geralt. He’s not going to let these assholes walk away from this, only to come back later and threaten the people he loves again.

Jaskier throws all his weight backwards, slamming his shoulder into Alek’s chest and knocking away the gun with his elbow. Alek is clearly not expecting his hostage to struggle and is knocked off balance. Jaskier doesn’t give his attacker time to regain his footing before he pivots and thrusts his sword into Alek’s stomach. He grimaces at the sickening feeling of his blade cutting through skin and muscle. For a moment, Jaskier and Alek stare at each other, Jaskier’s hand still clutching the sword and Alek’s eyes blown wide with shock.

With a trembling hand, Alek starts to raise his gun.

There’s a snarl of rage and Geralt runs Alek through from behind, the tip of his sword bursting from the man’s chest. Alek is dead before he hits the ground. His pale eyes still stare up at Jaskier; there’s a trickle of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. Both breathing hard, Geralt and Jaskier stare down at the body.

“You okay?” Geralt asks.

Jaskier nods. “I think I’ve had enough of people trying to shoot me for this year. Maybe this decade.”

When he looks around, he sees that every member of the Eternal Fire is dead. Coën and Vesemir are checking on Eskel while Triss and Yennefer examine Ciri’s wound. “It went right through,” Jaskier hears Yennefer murmur. “A little healing, and it won’t even leave a scar.”

Meanwhile, Lambert is looking around frantically. “Where the fuck is Aiden?”

“Here!” Aiden comes jogging out of the woods, looking downright cheerful, despite the blood-splatter on his face. “The sniper and all the scouts are dead.”

Ciri lets the shield dissolve and Aiden comes striding up to Lambert. “Were you worried, Lam?”

Lambert’s face goes through a range of emotions, like he has no idea what to say. He settles with, “Fuck off.”

Jaskier looks around at the bodies. There are too many of them to make these men simply disappear. And even if it was in self-defense, killing humans will lead to scrutiny the witchers of Kaer Morhen don’t need. “So, what are we thinking? Make it look like an animal attack? Maybe a wyvern?”

Yennefer smiles viciously. “Camping on this mountain _is_ dangerous. There are signs saying so.”

“Even armed humans could have been taken by surprise by a wyvern or two,” Vesemir says. “I’ve seen it before.”

“A shame.” Eskel shakes his head in mock despair.

“Hm.” Geralt nudges Alek’s corpse with the toe of his boot. “Too bad they didn’t call a Witcher.”

***

Kaer Morhen is quiet the next morning. Ciri, Aiden, Coën, Vesemir, and Eskel are all sleeping off their various aches and bruises. Even though Triss has gotten over her dimeritium poisoning, she and Yennefer haven’t emerged from their room since yesterday afternoon. From the loud snoring Lambert hears when he passes Geralt and Jaskier’s room, they aren’t getting up any time soon. Besides Mousesack, who pads after him as he makes his way downstairs, Lambert is on the only one awake in the keep. He makes himself a pot of coffee and goes outside to sit on the wall overlooking the training yard and enjoy the peace and quiet of the morning. He absentmindedly strokes Mousesack as the cat settles down next to him.

“Cats always did have a soft spot for you.”

Lambert almost drops his mug of coffee. When he recovers himself, he turns to glare at Aiden. “One of these days, I’m going to fucking stab you when you sneak up on me.”

Aiden shrugs. “You can try.”

Lambert grunts and turns away. He pretends not to be aware of Aiden’s every move as the Cat settles down on the wall next to him.

“So, with the Eternal Fire done for, no reason for me to stick around any longer,” Aiden says.

Lambert ignores the pang in his chest. “We don’t know that they’re done for. That was only a couple dozen of them. There are more out there.”

“Think we got most of their leadership, though. And the thing about people like the Eternal Fire is that most of them aren’t actually willing to pick up guns and go after non-humans. The rest are happy sitting behind their keyboards.”

“Might want to stick around a while, just in case. There could still be assassins after the reward.”

“Do you want me to stick around, Lam?”

Lambert genuinely doesn’t know what the answer to that question is. “Why would I want you to stick around? If you want to go, then go.”

“All you have to do is say the word and I won’t.”

Lambert doesn’t look at him. Silence hangs between them for a long moment.

Aiden sighs and climbs to his feet. “Well, I guess that’s my answer then.”

Lambert remembers being chained to a tree the day before with a gun pointed at his head and only being able to think about this infuriating Cat. Fucking hell, but he knows he’ll regret it if he lets Aiden walk away. “Aiden, wait.”

Aiden stops and slowly turns to face him, looking uncertain.

“I’m still pissed at you,” Lambert tells him.

“I know, Lam. Not like you’re trying to hide it.”

“And I have the right to be pissed at you. What you did was shit. Maybe I wasn’t good about showing you that you were important to me, but you had to know that I would want to know you were alive.”

Aiden winces. “Does it help that I feel like shit about it?”

“A little.” Lambert shrugs. “But yesterday, I thought I was going to get murdered by a bunch of spineless assholes with guns and all I could think about was you.”

Aiden’s expression goes soft. “Lambert, I—”

Lambert holds out a hand to silence him. “I’m not done. You and I aren’t okay yet. It will be awhile before we are. But I’d like to get there eventually. And that can't happen if you leave.”

“Maybe we could try being friends?” Aiden asks tentatively.

“Have enough friends,” Lambert says out of habit, then immediately regrets it when Aiden looks stricken. Quickly, he adds, “We can be friends, but actual friends. Not friends like we were before. No fucking.”

“At all?”

“At all.” Lambert pauses, considering. “For now.”

Aiden steps forward. “Some friends kiss.”

Lambert’s eyes fall to Aiden’s lips. He forgot about the little mole on the corner of Aiden’s mouth. A single tiny mole shouldn’t be so fucking cute. “Do they?”

“I did heroically come to your rescue yesterday.”

Lambert snorts. “How many nests did I drag you out of half-dead?”

“And you always got a thank you kiss. Sometimes, you even got a thank you bl—”

Lambert kisses him. Mostly to shut him up, of course. He’s surprised by how easy it is after all this time, like three hundred years haven’t passed since he last felt Aiden’s lips on his. Everything is familiar— the way Aiden tastes, the way his mouth moves against Lambert’s, the little noise he makes when Lambert gently bites his lower lip. For a long moment, Lambert lets himself get lost in Aiden.

And then he remembers why it’s been so long since he kissed Aiden and he breaks the kiss, stepping towards. When Aiden moves in for a second kiss, Lambert holds up a hand to stop him. “That isn’t happening again, Cat.”

To his surprise, Aiden laughs, that warm and slightly wild laugh that Lambert hasn’t heard in centuries. “Now, where have I heard that before, Wolf?”

***

When Geralt wakes up, Jaskier is pressed against his back, with his leg slotted between Geralt’s, his arm around Geralt’s waist, and his breath tickling the back of Geralt’s neck. Geralt can feel a spot of drying drool on his back. The room is quiet except for Jaskier’s soft snores. Geralt wants to turn over and pull Jaskier into his arms, but he can’t do that without waking up his boyfriend, so he just lies there and enjoys the feeling of peaceful contentment.

When Jaskier makes the soft snuffling noise that means he’s waking up, Geralt rolls over and finds sleepy blue eyes blinking open. “Morning, handsome,” Jaskier murmurs.

“Morning.” Geralt picks up Jaskier’s wrist— still red and bruised from the handcuffs— and presses a kiss to it. “You should have Yenn or Triss take a look at these today.”

“They’re just bruises, love.”

They don’t feel like just bruises to Geralt. They’re a visceral reminder that someone hated Geralt enough to want the man he loves dead and how close they came to succeeding.

“Don’t waste a perfectly good morning cuddle by brooding.” Jaskier snuggles closer. “We’re both okay. We officially outlasted a four hundred year old cult.”

“They’re not gone. Groups like the Eternal Fire never entirely go away.”

“No, but I’m hoping we’ve at least scared them into submission for a few decades.”Jaskier smiles viciously. “And if they do come back, we’ll be waiting for them.” 

With a hum of agreement, Geralt kisses him.

When he pulls away, Jaskier asks, “So, what now?”

“We should probably stay here for a bit longer, just in case more assassins come. Might take a while for word to get out that most of the Eternal Fire is dead.”

“But after we leave?”

Geralt looks at Jaskier, with his rumpled hair, the pillow crease in his cheek, and the eyes that look bluer than ever in the morning sunlight. He thinks about how lucky he is that he’ll get to wake up like this every day for the next forty, fifty, sixty years. Someday, Jaskier’s blue eyes will be framed by laugh lines and his hair will be as white as Geralt’s and it won’t be a source of grief, because Geralt will be aging right along with him. Geralt will get to love Jaskier for the rest of their lives.

“Ever been to Touissaint?” Geralt asks.

***

Geralt and Jaskier stay another two weeks at Kaer Morhen before the buzz around the entirety of the Eternal Fire’s leadership dying in a freak wyvern attack on a wilderness retreat dies down and they decide it’s safe for them to reenter society. Jaskier will miss his mornings in the library, afternoons in the training yard, and evenings playing Gwent. He’ll miss all the time he’s gotten to spend with Ciri, Triss, and Yennefer and getting to know the witchers. But they have to go back to the real world at some point.

“Make sure it’s not another seventy-four damn years before Geralt visits again,” Eskel tells Jaskier when he hugs him goodbye.

“Heard that,” Geralt says, frowning at Eskel over the top of Ciri’s head. “And we’ll be back. Jaskier likes it here.”

Jaskier and Eskel both shoot Geralt incredulous looks.

“And it was good seeing everyone,” Geralt adds.

Eskel goes to embrace Geralt and Jaskier turns to Aiden and Lambert, who are standing next to each other. They’ve been acting friendly with each other these past two weeks— or, as friendly as Lambert gets with everyone. The redheaded witcher grumbles as Jaskier throws his arms around him, but returns the embrace.

“Think you can go a couple of weeks without someone trying to kill you?” Lambert asks.

“Excuse you, people hardly ever try to kill me.”

“That seems unlikely for multiple reasons.”

“I have no idea why I’m going to miss you, Lambert, but I am.” Jaskier pulls away from Lambert and turns to hug Aiden.

“You two okay?” Jaskier keeps his voice low, even though he knows Lambert and all the other witchers will be able to hear them.

“We’re getting there,” Aiden says. “You know how stubborn Wolves can be.”

Jaskier glances over at Geralt, who is currently being lectured by Yennefer on the importance of not regularly ending up in mortal peril. “Well aware.”

After their goodbyes are finished and Yennefer portals them back to Posada, Jaskier is tempted to collapse into bed for a couple of hours. Instead, they drop Mousesack off at the cat sitter’s, climb into Roach, and head south. They make good time and by late afternoon, they’ve reached Toussaint.

They keep Roach’s windows rolled down as they drive, music playing over the radio, a compromise— Jaskier doesn’t put his feet up on the dashboard if Geralt lets him play music. Jaskier has his arm out the window, letting the sun warm it as he takes in the vineyards they pass and the rolling green mountains in the distance.

When they turn down a long drive, past more rows of grape trees, Jaskier has to fight the urge to hang his head out the window like a dog. “Is this it?” he asks.

Geralt gives a hum of affirmation.

“This is incredible.”

“You haven’t seen in the house.”

“Look at all this land! We can sleep outside if the house is a dump.”

“Wait a couple of weeks until green fly season. You might change your mind.”

Jaskier makes a face at his boyfriend, but Geralt is watching the road and doesn’t see it. Or pretends not to.

The house isn’t a dump. It’s a two-story farmhouse, all sun-bleached stone and glass windows wavy with age.

“Geralt, do you have any other luxury properties you’ve gotten as payment that you haven’t been telling me about?” Jaskier asks as Geralt parks Roach. “A yacht, maybe? An animal shelter full of puppies?”

Geralt snorts. “No, just this.”

The inside of the house is dusty from years of disuse, but even Jaskier, who knows about as much about architecture as he knows about nuclear physics, can tell that it’s gorgeous, with a tall stone fireplace in the sitting room, hardwood floors, and glass double doors overlooking a patio and a garden.

“House was built in the 12th century, but the previous owners updated it,” Geralt says. “They were wealthy wine merchants, I think. Not a lot of houses had running water and electricity a hundred years ago.”

“What happened to them?”

Geralt doesn’t say anything.

“Geralt.” Jaskier turns to the man he adores beyond all reason. “What happened to the previous owners of this house?”

“Vampire got them.”

“Here?”

“It was a long time ago. If they turned into wraiths, we would know it by now.”

Jaskier’s horror about the bloody murders that happened in the house are cured as soon as he sees the upstairs, which houses three good-sized bedrooms and a bathroom. The bathroom needs updating, as does the kitchen, but there’s an enormous claw-footed bathtub that makes Geralt’s expression brighten. The master bedroom offers a gorgeous view of the vineyard and the mountains.

“It needs work,” Geralt says after they’ve toured every inch of the place and are staying on the back patio.

“Well, it’s been sitting here for a hundred years. I’d be more surprised if it didn’t.”

“I don’t know shit about wine.”

“We could learn. I feel like Yenn could help with that.”

“Would you be happy here?” Geralt is watching Jaskier, looking uncertain.

“Geralt, love.” Jaskier reaches out and takes Geralt’s face in his hands. “You’ll be here. Of course I’ll be happy.”

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This series isn't over! On Thursday 11/19, my chapter of [Into the Jaskierverse](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895545) set in this AU will be published. After that, the final installment in this series will be published sometime in January or February.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated.
> 
> Updates will be on Sundays. Feel free to find me on [Tumblr](https://ghostinthelibrarywrites.tumblr.com/) or on Discord at ghostinthelibrary#1691.


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